There was a time in former years- <br />While my roof-tree was his- <br />When I should have been distressed by fears <br />At such a night as this! <br /> <br />I should have murmured anxiously, <br />'The prickling rain strikes cold; <br />His road is bare of hedge or tree, <br />And he is getting old.' <br /> <br />But now the fitful chimney-roar, <br />The drone of Thorncombe trees, <br />The Froom in flood upon the moor, <br />The mud of Mellstock Leaze, <br /> <br />The candle slanting sooty-wick'd, <br />The thuds upon the thatch, <br />The eaves drops on the window flicked, <br />The clanking garden-hatch, <br /> <br />And what they mean to wayfarers, <br />I scarcely heed or mind; <br />He has won that storm-tight roof of hers <br />Which Earth grants all her kind.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/she-hears-the-storm-2/
