I opened my shutter at sunrise, <br />And looked at the hill hard by, <br />And I heartily grieved for the comrade <br />Who wandered up there to die. <br /> <br /> <br />I let in the morn on the morrow, <br />And failed not to think of him then, <br />As he trod up that rise in the twilight, <br />And never came down again. <br /> <br /> <br />I undid the shutter a week thence, <br />But not until after I'd turned <br />Did I call back his last departure <br />By the upland there discerned. <br /> <br /> <br />Uncovering the casement long later, <br />I bent to my toil till the gray, <br />When I said to myself, 'Ah - what ails me, <br />To forget him all the day!' <br /> <br /> <br />As daily I flung back the shutter <br />In the same blank bald routine, <br />He scarcely once rose to remembrance <br />Through a month of my facing the scene. <br /> <br /> <br />And ah, seldom now do I ponder <br />At the window as heretofore <br />On the long valued one who died yonder, <br />And wastes by the sycamore.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-death-of-regret/
