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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SHE HEARS THE STORM by THOMAS HARDY

Poet Analysis

First Line: THERE WAS A TIME IN FORMER YEARS
Last Line: WHICH EARTH GRANTS ALL HER KIND.
Subject(s): STORMS;
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 Thornocombe 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.



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