She Hears The Storm

The poem

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 prickling 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 clanking 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.