SHE HEARS THE STORM

There was a time in former years -

While my roof-tree was his -

When I should have been distressed by fears

At such a night as this!

I should have murmured anxiously,

“The pricking rain strikes cold;

His road is bare of hedge or tree,

And he is getting old.”

But now the fitful chimney-roar,

The drone of Thorncombe trees,

The Froom in flood upon the moor,

The mud of Mellstock Leaze,

The candle slanting sooty wick'd,

The thuds upon the thatch,

The eaves-drops on the window flicked,

The clacking garden-hatch,

And what they mean to wayfarers,

I scarcely heed or mind;

He has won that storm-tight roof of hers

Which Earth grants all her kind.