The Shadow on the Stone Launch Audio in a New Window

The Shadow on the Stone  Launch Audio in a New Window
BY THOMAS HARDY

      I went by the Druid stone 
   That broods in the garden white and lone,   
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows   
   That at some moments fall thereon 
   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.