Thomas Hardy - The casual acquaintance lyrics

While he was here in breath and bone,   To speak to and to see, Would I had known - more clearly known -   What that man did for me When the wind scraped a minor lay,   And the spent west from white To gray turned tiredly, and from gray   To broadest bands of night! But I saw not, and he saw not   What shining life-tides flowed To me-ward from his casual jot   Of service on that road. He would have said: “'Twas nothing new;   We all do what we can; 'Twas only what one man would do   For any other man.” Now that I gauge his goodliness   He's slipped from human eyes; And when he pa**ed there's none can guess,   Or point out where he lies.