An August Midnight

by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
from Thomas Hardy, The Complete Poems. Edited by James Gibson. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 146-147.

I
A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined--
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While 'mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly that rubs its hands . . .

II
Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point in time, at this point in space.
--My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
'God's humblest, they!' I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

Max Gate, 1899

Additional Info:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/110
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/index.html
http://www.yale.edu/hardysoc/Welcome/welcomet.htm