Perhaps, long hence, when I have pass'd away,
Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine,
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love's decline.
Then you may pause awhile and think, 'Poor jade!'
And yield a sigh to me--as ample due,
Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid
To one who could resign her all to you--
And thus reflecting, you will never see
That your thin thought, in two small words convey'd,
Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,
But the Whole Life wherin my part was play'd;
And you amid its fitful masquerade
A Thought--as I in yours but seem to be.
Thomas Hardy
