"The day is turning ghost, 
And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and furtively, 
   To join the anonymous host
Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place, maybe, 
   To one of like degree. 

   I part the fire-gnawed logs, 
Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and lay the ends
   Upon the shining dogs; *
Further and further from the nooks the twilight's stride extends, 
   And beamless black impends. 

   Nothing of tiniest worth
Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing asking blame or
praise, 
   Since the pale corpse-like birth
Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its rays - 
   Dullest of dull-hued Days! .

   Wanly upon the panes
The rain slides as have slid since morn my colourless thoughts; 
and yet
   Here, while Day's presence wanes, 
And over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered and set, 
   He wakens my regret. 

   Regret--though nothing dear
That I wot {knew} of, was toward in the wide world at his prime, 
   Or bloomed elsewhere than here, 
To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet, sublime, 
   Or mark him out in Time . . . 

   --Yet, maybe, in some soul, 
In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some impulse rose, 
   Or some intent upstole
Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer glows
   The world's amendment flows; 

   But which, benumbed at birth
By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope to be
   Embodied on the earth; 
And undervoicings of this loss to man's futurity
   May wake regret in me.''

-- Thomas Hardy, "A Commonplace Day''

"Dogs'' is an old expression for the metal supports for logs in a fireplace.