Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away, <br />Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine, <br />Will carry you back to what I used to say, <br />And bring some memory of your love’s decline. <br /> <br />Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!” <br />And yield a sigh to me—as gift benign, <br />Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid <br />To one who could to you her all resign— <br /> <br />And thus reflecting, you will never see <br />That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed, <br />Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me, <br />But the Whole Life wherein my part was played; <br />And you amid its fitful masquerade <br />A Thought—as I in yours but seem to be.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/she-to-him-ii/
