Moments of Vision

1840 –

1928

That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency,
Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bared spectacle to see
Of you and me?

That mirror
Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
Until we start?

That mirror
Works well in these night hours of ache;
Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
When the world is awake?

That mirror
Can test each mortal when unaware;
Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
Reflecting it—where?

This poem is in the public domain.

Drummer Hodge

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
     Uncoffined—just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
     That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
     Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew—
     Fresh from his Wessex home—
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
     The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
     Strange stars amid the gloam.

III

Thomas Hardy

2017

Snow in the Suburbs

                    Every branch big with it,
                    Bent every twig with it;
            Every fork like a white web-foot;
            Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.

Thomas Hardy

1925

The Shadow on the Stone

      I went by the Druid stone
   That stands in the garden white and lone,
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows
   That at some moments there are thrown
   From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,
   And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders

Thomas Hardy

1917

Poems

Moments of Vision

More by this poet

Drummer Hodge

Snow in the Suburbs

The Shadow on the Stone

Poems

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Moments of Vision

More by this poet

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