<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=381261" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Other</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The forest ended. Glad I was<br>To feel the light, and hear the hum<br>Of bees, and smell the drying grass<br>And the sweet mint, because I had come<br>To an end of forest, and because<br>Here was both road and inn, the sum<br>Of what's not forest. But 'twas here<br>They asked me if I did not pass<br>Yesterday this way. 'Not you? Queer.'<br>'Who then? and slept here?' I felt fear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I learnt his road and, ere they were<br>Sure I was I, left the dark wood<br>Behind, kestrel and woodpecker,<br>The inn in the sun, the happy mood<br>When first I tasted sunlight there.<br>I travelled fast, in hopes I should<br>Outrun that other. What to do<br>When caught, I planned not. I pursued<br>To prove the likeness, and, if true,<br>To watch until myself I knew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I tried the inns that evening<br>Of a long gabled high-street grey,<br>Of courts and outskirts, travelling<br>And eager but a weary way,<br>In vain. He was not there. Nothing<br>Told me that ever till that day<br>Had one like me entered those doors,<br>Save once. That time I dared: 'You may<br>Recall' -- but never-foamless shores<br>Make better friends than those dull boors.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Many and many a day like this<br>Aimed at the unseen moving goal<br>And nothing found but remedies<br>For all desire. These made not whole;<br>They sowed a new desire, a kiss<br>Desire's self beyond control,<br>Desire of desire. And yet<br>Life stayed on within my soul.<br>One night in sheltering from the wet<br>I quite forgot I could forget.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A customer, then the landlady<br>Stared at me. With a kind of smile<br>They hesitated awkwardly:<br>Their silence gave me time for guile.<br>Had anyone called there like me,<br>I asked. It was quite plain the wile<br>Succeeded. For they poured out all.<br>And that was naught. Less than a mile<br>Beyond the inn, I could recall<br>He was like me in general.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He had pleased them, but I less.<br>I was more eager than before<br>To find him out and to confess,<br>To bore him and to let him bore.<br>I could not wait: children might guess<br>I had a purpose, something more<br>That made an answer indiscreet.<br>One girl's caution made me sore,<br>Too indignant even to greet<br>That other had we chanced to meet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I sought then in solitude.<br>The wind had fallen with the night; as still<br>The roads lay as the ploughland rude,<br>Dark and naked, on the hill.<br>Had there been ever any feud<br>'Twixt earth and sky, a mighty will<br>Closed it: the crocketed dark trees,<br>A dark house, dark impossible<br>Cloud-towers, one star, one lamp, one peace<br>Held on an everlasting lease:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all was earth's, or all was sky's;<br>No difference endured between<br>The two. A dog barked on a hidden rise;<br>A marshbird whistled high unseen;<br>The latest waking blackbird's cries<br>Perished upon the silence keen.<br>The last light filled a narrow firth<br>Among the clouds. I stood serene,<br>And with a solemn quiet mirth,<br>An old inhabitant of earth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Once the name I gave to hours<br>Like this was melancholy, when<br>It was not happiness and powers<br>Coming like exiles home again,<br>And weaknesses quitting their bowers,<br>Smiled and enjoyed, far off from men,<br>Moments of everlastingness.<br>And fortunate my search was then<br>While what I sought, nevertheless,<br>That I was seeking, I did not guess.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That time was brief: once more at inn<br>And upon road I sought my man<br>Till once amid a tap-room's din<br>Loudly he asked for me, began<br>To speak, as if it had been a sin,<br>Of how I thought and dreamed and ran<br>After him thus, day after day:<br>He lived as one under a ban<br>For this: what had I got to say?<br>I said nothing. I slipped away.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now I dare not follow after<br>Too close. I try to keep in sight,<br>Dreading his frown and worse his laughter.<br>I steal out of the wood to light;<br>I see the swift shoot from the rafter<br>By the inn door: ere I alight<br>I wait and hear the starlings wheeze<br>And nibble like ducks: I wait his flight.<br>He goes: I follow: no release<br>Until he ceases. Then I also shall cease.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Edward+Thomas">Edward Thomas</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=381261" data-title="The Other de Edward Thomas" data-description="The forest ended. Glad I was To feel the light, and hear the hum Of bees, and smell the drying grass And the sweet mint, because I had come To an end of forest, and because Here was both road and inn, the sum Of what's not forest. But 'twas here T..."></div> </div> </div>

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