When libraries aren't available, there is always the internet. Went on "Google" - then "Thomas Hardy Great Things" and lo and behold

From www.recmusic.org/lieder/h/hardy/things.html


GREAT THINGS
(Thomas Hardy)

Sweet cyder is a great thing
A great thing to me,
Spinning down to Weymouth town
By Ridgeway thirstily,
And maid and mistress summoning
Who tend the hostelry;
O cyder is a great thing
A great thing to me!

The dance it is a great thing
A great thing to me,
With candles lit and partners fit
For night-long revelry,
A going home when day-dawning
Peeps pale upon the lea;
O dancing is a great thing
A great thing to me!

Love is, yea, a great thing
A great thing to me,
When, having drawn across the lawn
In darkness silently,
A figure flits like one a-wing
Out from the nearest tree;
O love is, yes, a great thing,
Aye, greatest thing to me.

Will these be always great things
Greatest things to me?......
Let it befall that one will call
"Soul, I have need of thee":
What then, joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,
Love and its ecstacy
Will always have been great things,
Greatest things to me.

Thanks to McGrath of Harlow

Line Breaks <br> added.
-Joe Offer-