I come across from Mellstock while the moon wastes weaker <br />To behold where I lived with you for twenty years and more: <br />I shall go in the gray, at the passing of the mail-train, <br />And need no setting open of the long familiar door <br />As before. <br /> <br /> <br />The change I notice in my once own quarters! <br />A brilliant budded border where the daisies used to be, <br />The rooms new painted, and the pictures altered, <br />And other cups and saucers, and no cosy nook for tea <br />As with me. <br /> <br /> <br />I discern the dim faces of the sleep-wrapt servants; <br />They are not those who tended me through feeble hours and strong, <br />But strangers quite, who never knew my rule here, <br />Who never saw me painting, never heard my softling song <br />Float along. <br /> <br /> <br />So I don't want to linger in this re-decked dwelling, <br />I feel too uneasy at the contrasts I behold, <br />And I make again for Mellstock to return here never, <br />And rejoin the roomy silence, and the mute and manifold <br />Souls of old.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/his-visitor/
