Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,
Some other’s feature, accent, thought like mine,
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love’s decline.
Then you may pause awhile and think, “Poor jade!”
And yield a sigh to me-as gift benign,
Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid
To one who could to you her all resign-
And thus reflecting, you will never see
That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,
Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,
But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;
And you amid its fitful masquerade
A Thought-as I in yours but seem to be.
(Thomas Hardy)
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Based on Topics: Mind Poems, Thought & Thinking Poems, Memory Poems, Debts PoemsBased on Keywords: jade, fitful, conveyed, accent, benign, unpaid, tittle, masquerade, me-as