Thomas Hardy — The Figure In The Scene

  It pleased her to step in front and sit     Where the cragged slope was green, While I stood back that I might pencil it     With her amid the scene;         Till it gloomed and rained; But I kept on, despite the drifting wet         That fell and stained My draught, leaving for curious quizzings yet         The blots engrained.   And thus I drew her there alone,     Seated amid the gauze Of moisture, hooded, only her outline shown,     With rainfall marked across.          —Soon passed our stay; Yet her rainy form is the Genius still of the spot,         Immutable, yea, Though the place now knows her no more, and has known her not         Ever since that day. From an old note.