The Shadow On The Stone Thomas Hardy

          I went by the Druid stone
        That broods in the garden white and lone,
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows
        That at some moments fall thereon
        From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,
        And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders
         Threw there when she was gardening.

          I thought her behind my back,
        Yea, her I long had learned to lack,
And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me,
        Though how do you get into this old track?"
        And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf
        As a sad response; and to keep down grief
I would not turn my head to discover
        That there was nothing in my belief.

          Yet I wanted to look and see
        That nobody stood at the back of me;
But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision
        A shape which, somehow, there may be."
        So I went on softly from the glade,
        And left her behind me throwing her shade,
As she were indeed an apparition -
        My head unturned lest my dream should fade.