"
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"?
Footnotes:
{1} Jer. li. 20.
End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of Moments of Vision, by Thomas Hardy
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121