 | Collected poems of Thomas Hardy |  |
HIS IMMORTALITY 
I
I saw a dead man's finer partShining within each faithful heart
Of those bereft. Then said I: “This must be
His immortality .”131
II
I looked there as the seasons wore,And still his soul continuously bore
A life in theirs. But less its shine excelled
Than when I first beheld.
III
His fellow-yearsmen passed, and thenIn later hearts I looked for him again;
And found him—shrunk, alas! into a thin
And spectral mannikin.
IV
Lastly I ask—now old and chill—If aught of him remain unperished still;
And find, in me alone, a feeble spark,
Dying amid the dark.
February 1899.
| Collected poems of Thomas Hardy | |