All that had animated him

In Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles, there is a fantastic and grotesque passage which has riveted itself into my memory. It describes the immediate aftermath of Tess's carriage being struck by the mail-cart, traveling the opposite way just before dawn. The shaft of the mail-cart pierces the chest of Prince, the horse pulling Tess's carriage, "like a sword." The result: Prince bleeds to death shockingly fast as Tess looks on, frantic, helpless, as the dawn slowly arrives. It is some of Hardy's most vivid writing:

"The atmosphere turned pale, the birds shook themselves in the hedges, arose, and twittered; the lane showed all its white features, and Tess showed hers, still whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation; and when the sun rose a million prismatic hues were reflected from it. Prince lay alongside still and stark; his eyes half open, the hole in his chest looking scarcely large enough to have let out all that had animated him."