Seen By The Waits

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Through snowy woods and shady
  We went to play a tune
To the lonely manor-lady
  By the light of the Christmas moon.


We violed till, upward glancing
  To where a mirror leaned,
We saw her airily dancing,
  Deeming her movements screened;


Dancing alone in the room there,
  Thin-draped in her robe of night;
Her postures, glassed in the gloom there,
  Were a strange phantasmal sight.


She had learnt (we heard when homing)
  That her roving spouse was dead;
Why she had danced in the gloaming
  We thought, but never said.

© Thomas Hardy