Thomas Hardy

She Hears the Storm

There was a time in former years–
While my roof—tree was his—
When I should have been distressed by fears
At such a night as this!
 
I should have murmured anxiously,
‘The prickling rain strikes cold;
His road is bare of hedge or tree,
And he is getting old.’
 
But now the fitful chimney-roar,
The drone of Thorncombe trees,
The Froom in flood upon the moor,
The mud of Mellstock Leaze,
 
The candle slanting sooty-wick’d,
The thuds upon the thatch,
The eaves drops on the window flicked,
The clanking garden-hatch,
 
And what they mean to wayfarers,
I scarcely heed or mind;
He has won that storm-tight roof of hers
Which Earth grants all her kind.
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