The Shadow on the Stone

Thomas Hardy

     I went by the Druid stone

   That stands in the garden white and lone,

And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows

   That at some moments there are thrown

   From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,

   And they shaped in my imagining

To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders

   Threw there when she was gardening.

     I thought her behind my back,

   Yea, her I long had learned to lack,

And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me,

   Though how do you get into this old track?"

   And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf

   As a sad response; and to keep down grief

I would not turn my head to discover

   That there was nothing in my belief.

     Yet I wanted to look and see

   That nobody stood at the back of me;

But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision

   A shape which, somehow, there may be."

   So I went on softly from the glade,

   And left her behind me throwing her shade,

As she were indeed an apparition —

   My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

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