Thomas Hardy
“I Travel As A Phantom Now”
I travel as a phantom now,
For people do not wish to see
In flesh and blood so bare a bough
As Nature makes of me.
And thus I visit bodiless
Strange gloomy households often at odds,
And wonder if Man's consciousness
Was a mistake of God's.
And next I meet you, and I pause,
And think that if mistake it were,
As some have said, O then it was
One that I well can bear!
1915.