Explore "Vagg Hollow" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Vagg Hollow is a marshy spot on the old Roman Road near Ilchester, where / "things" are seen. Merchandise was formerly fetched inland from the / canal-boats at Load-Bridge by waggons this way.
"WHAT do you see in Vagg Hollow, / Little boy, when you go / In the morning at five on your lonely drive? " / "-I see men's souls, who follow / Till we've passed where the road lies low, / When they vanish at our creaking!
"They are like white faces speaking / Beside and behind the waggon- / One just as father's was when here. / The waggoner drinks from his flagon, / (Or he'd flinch when the Hollow is near) / But he does not give me any.
"Sometimes the faces are many; / But I walk along by the horses, / He asleep on the straw as we jog; / And I hear the loud water-courses, / And the drops from the trees in the fog, / And watch till the day is breaking.
"And the wind out by Tintinhull waking; / I hear in it father's call / As he called when I saw him dying, / And he sat by the fire last Fall, / And mother stood by sighing; / But I'm not afraid at all! "