They hail me as one living, <br />But don't they know <br />That I have died of late years, <br />Untombed although? <br /> <br />I am but a shape that stands here, <br />A pulseless mould, <br />A pale past picture, screening <br />Ashes gone cold. <br /> <br />Not at a minute's warning, <br />Not in a loud hour, <br />For me ceased Time's enchantments <br />In hall and bower. <br /> <br />There was no tragic transit, <br />No catch of breath, <br />When silent seasons inched me <br />On to this death ... <br /> <br />-- A Troubadour-youth I rambled <br />With Life for lyre, <br />The beats of being raging <br />In me like fire. <br /> <br />But when I practised eyeing <br />The goal of men, <br />It iced me, and I perished <br />A little then. <br /> <br />When passed my friend, my kinsfolk, <br />Through the Last Door, <br />And left me standing bleakly, <br />I died yet more; <br /> <br />And when my Love's heart kindled <br />In hate of me, <br />Wherefore I knew not, died I <br />One more degree. <br /> <br />And if when I died fully <br />I cannot say, <br />And changed into the corpse-thing <br />I am to-day, <br /> <br />Yet is it that, though whiling <br />The time somehow <br />In walking, talking, smiling, <br />I live not now.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-dead-man-walking/
