The Shadow on the Stone

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I went by the Druid stone
 That broods in the garden white and lone, 
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows 
 That at some moments fall thereon
 From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing, 
 And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders 
 Threw there when she was gardening.

 I thought her behind my back,
 Yea, her I long had learned to lack,
And I said: ‘I am sure you are standing behind me, 
 Though how do you get into this old track?’ 
 And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf 
 As a sad response; and to keep down grief
I would not turn my head to discover
 That there was nothing in my belief.

 Yet I wanted to look and see
 That nobody stood at the back of me;
But I thought once more: ‘Nay, I’ll not unvision 
 A shape which, somehow, there may be.’ 
 So I went on softly from the glade,
 And left her behind me throwing her shade, 
As she were indeed an apparition—
 My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

© Thomas Hardy