Read "She, I, and They" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
I WAS sitting, / She was knitting, / And the portraits of our fore-folk hung around; / When there struck on us a sigh; / "Ah-what is that? " said I: / "Was it not you? " said she. "A sigh did sound."
I had not breathed it, / Nor the night-wind heaved it, / And how it came to us we could not guess; / And we looked up at each face / Framed and glazed there in its place, / Still hearkening; but thenceforth was silentness.
Half in dreaming, / "Then its meaning," / Said we, "must be surely this; that they repine / That we should be the last / Of stocks once unsurpassed, / And unable to keep up their sturdy line. "