Read "In the British Museum" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"WHAT do you see in that time-touched stone, / When nothing is there / But ashen blankness, although you give it / A rigid stare?
"You look not quite as if you saw, / But as if you heard, / Parting your lips, and treading softly / As mouse or bird.
"It is only the base of a pillar, they'll tell you, / That came to us / From a far old hill men used to name / Areopagus."
-"I know no art, and I only view / A stone from a wall, / But I am thinking that stone has echoed / The voice of Paul,
"Paul as he stood and preached beside it / Facing the crowd, / A small gaunt figure with wasted features, / Calling out loud
"Words that in all their intimate accents / Pattered upon / That marble front, and were far reflected, / And then were gone.
"I'm a labouring man, and know but little, / Or nothing at all; / But I can't help thinking that stone once echoed / The voice of Paul. "