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