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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN EPITAPH by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE HOW THE CUMBERLAND WENT DOWN [MARCH 8, 1862] by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL THE RUBAIYAT, 1879 EDITION: 100 by OMAR KHAYYAM THE DEAD HEROES by ISAAC ROSENBERG LITTLE BILLEE by WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY NUPTIAL SONG by JOHN BYRNE LEICESTER WARREN |