When the Present has latched its
postern behind my tremulous stay, |
And the May month flaps
its glad green leaves like wings, |
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk,
will the neighbours say, |
'He was a man who used to
notice such things'?
|
If it be in the dusk when, like
an eyelid's soundless blink, |
The dewfall-hawk comes
crossing the shades to alight |
Upon the wind-warped upland
thorn, a gazer may think, |
'To him this must have
been a familiar sight.'
|
If I pass during some nocturnal
blackness, mothy and warm, |
When the hedgehog travels
furtively over the lawn, |
One may say, 'He strove that such
innocent creatures should come to no harm, |
But he could do little for
them; and now he is gone.'
|
If, when hearing that I have been
stilled at last, they stand at the door, |
Watching the full-starred
heavens that winter sees, |
Will this thought rise on those
who will meet my face no more, |
'He was one who had an eye for
such mysteries'?
|
And will any say when my bell of
quittance is heard in the gloom, |
And a crossing breeze cuts
a pause in its outrollings, |
Till they rise again, as they
were a new bell's boom, |
'He hears it not now, but
used to notice such things'?
|
Thomas Hardy
| Classic Poems |
|
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