She Hears the Storm

There was a time in former years—   While my roof-tree was his— When I should have been distressed by fears   At such a night as this. I should have murmured anxiously,   “The pricking rain strikes cold; His road is bare of hedge or tree,   And he is getting old.” But now the fitful chimney-roar,   The drone of Thorncombe trees, The Froom in flood upon the moor,   The mud of Mellstock Leaze, The candle slanting sooty wick’d,   The thuds upon the thatch, The eaves-drops on the window flicked,   The clacking garden-hatch, And what they mean to wayfarers,   I scarcely heed or mind; He has won that storm-tight roof of hers   Which Earth grants all her kind.