An August Midnight / Thomas Hardy

An August Midnight

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter— winged, horned, and spined —
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While 'mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands...

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
— My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

~~
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), 1900
From Poems of the Past and Present, 1901

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Thomas Hardy biography