2 quotations linked to An August Midnight — Thomas Hardy by or associated with Thomas Hardy, with source notes, explanations and related topics.
A still August night, small creatures around a writing table, precise time and place, curiosity and humility about nonhuman life.
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“They know Earth-secrets that know not I.”
The speaker ends by conceding that the small creatures may possess forms of earthly knowledge unavailable to him, turning observation into intellectual humility.
Source note: “An August Midnight,” Project Gutenberg #3168. The line is poetic speculation about nonhuman knowledge rather than a scientific claim about insect cognition.
“Thus meet we five, in this still place, At this point of time, at this point in space.”
The speaker's quiet encounter with small nocturnal creatures is fixed to one precise moment and place, making attention itself the poem's central event.
Source note: “An August Midnight,” Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), Project Gutenberg #3168. The five include the speaker and small creatures gathered around his writing table.