An August Midnight

I can almost picture Thomas Hardy, working late one summer night, the window open to cool the heat from an August day when, perhaps, it had been a bit too hot to work. And I was delighted to find that a dumbledore is not only a wizard, but also a bumblebee.

An August Midnight

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 of time, at this point in space.
- My guests parade my new-penned ink,
Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

Thomas Hardy

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