Poem by Thomas Hardy

The Casual Acquaintance

While he was here with breath and bone,
To speak to and to see,
Would I had known – more clearly known –
What that man did for me

When the wind scraped a minor lay,
And the spent west from white
To gray turned tiredly, and from gray
To broadest bands of night!

But I saw not, and he saw not
What shining life-tides flowed
To me-ward from his casual jot
Of service on that road.

He would have said: ‘’Twas nothing new;
We all do what we can;
’Twas only what one man would do
For any other man.’

Now that I gauge his goodliness
He’s slipped from human eyes;
And when he passed there’s none can guess,
Or point out where he lies.

1. At the Word ‘Farewell’
2. The Three Tall Men
3. The Dead Bastard
4. The Supplanter
5. Evening Shadows

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