Explore "The Voice of the Thorn" by Thomas Hardy on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I. WHEN the thorn on the down / Quivers naked and cold, / And the mid-aged and old / Pace the path there to town, / In these words dry and drear / It seems to them sighing: / "O winter is trying / To sojourners here!"
II. When it stands fully tressed / On a hot summer day, / And the ewes there astray / Find its shade a sweet rest, / By the breath of the breeze / It inquires of each farer: / "Who would not be sharer / Of shadow with these?"
III. But by day or by night, / And in winter or summer, / Should I be the comer / Along that lone height, / In its voicing to me / Only one speech is spoken: / "Here once was nigh broken / A heart, and by thee. "