Four Hardy Songs

"What shall I bring you?
Please will white do
Best for your wearing
The long day through?"
" - White is for weddings,
Weddings, weddings,
White is for weddings,
And that won't do. - "

"What shall I bring you?
Please will red do
Best for your wearing
The long day through?"
" - Red is for soldiers,
Soldiers, soldiers,
Red is for soldiers
And that won't do. - "

"What shall I bring you?
Please will blue do
Best for your wearing
The long day through?"
" - Blue is for sailors,
Sailors, sailors,
Blue is for sailors,
And that won't do. - "

"What shall I bring you?
Please will green do
Best for your wearing
The long day through?"
" - Green is for mayings,
Mayings, mayings,
Green is for mayings,
And that won't do. - "

"What shall I bring you
Then? Will black do
Best for your wearing
The long day through?"
" - Black is for mourning,
Mourning, mourning,
Black is for mourning,
And black will do. - "

O sweet sincerity! -
Where modern methods be
What scope for thine and thee?

Life may be sad past saying,
Its greens for ever graying,
Its faiths to dust decaying;

And youth may have foreknown it,
And riper seasons shown it,
But custom cries: "Disown it:

"Say ye rejoice, though grieving,
Believe, while unbelieving,
Behold, without perceiving!"

- Yet, would men look at true things,
And unilluded view things,
And count to bear undue things,

The real might mend the seeming,
Facts better their foredeeming,
And Life its disesteeming.

 If it's ever spring again,
 Spring again,
 I shall go where went I when
 Down the moor-cock splashed, and hen,
 Seeing me not, amid their flounder,
 Standing with my arm around her;
 If it's ever spring again,
 Spring again,
 I shall go where went I then.

 If it's ever summer-time,
 Summer-time,
 With the hay crop at the prime,
 And the cuckoos - two - in rhyme,
 As they used to be, or seemed to,
 We shall do as long we've dreamed to,
 If it's ever summer-time,
 Summer-time,
 With the hay, and bees achime.

"It is a foolish thing," said I,
"To bear with such, and pass it by;
Yet so I do, I know not why!"

And at each clash I would surmise
That if I had acted otherwise
I might have saved me many sighs.

But now the only happiness
In looking back that I possess -
Whose lack would leave me comfortless -

Is to remember I refrained
From masteries I might have gained,
And for my tolerance was disdained;

For see, a tomb. And if it were
I had bent and broke, I should not dare
To linger in the shadows there."