Analysis of After A Journey
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
I come to interview a Voiceless ghost;
Whither, O whither will its whim now draw me?
Up the cliff, down, till I'm lonely, lost,
And the unseen waters' soliloquies awe me.
Where you will next be there's no knowing,
Facing round about me everywhere,
With your nut-coloured hair,
And gray eyes, and rose-flush coming and going.
Yes: I have re-entered your olden haunts at last;
Through the years, through the dead scenes I have tracked you;
What have you now found to say of our past -
Viewed across the dark space wherein I have lacked you?
Summer gave us sweets, but autumn wrought division?
Things were not lastly as firstly well
With us twain, you tell?
But all's closed now, despite Time's derision.
I see what you are doing: you are leading me on
To the spots we knew when we haunted here together,
The waterfall, above which the mist-bow shone
At the then fair hour in the then fair weather,
And the cave just under, with a voice still so hollow
That it seems to call out to me from forty years ago,
When you were all aglow,
And not the thin ghost that I now frailly follow!
Ignorant of what there is flitting here to see,
The waked birds preen and the seals flop lazily,
Soon you will have, Dear, to vanish from me,
For the stars close their shutters and the dawn whitens hazily.
Trust me, I mind not, though Life lours,
The bringing of me here; nay, bring me here again!
I am just the same as when
Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers.
Scheme | XAXABCCB DEDEFGGF XHXHIIII AAAGJKKJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 111100101 10110111111 101111101 000110111 111111110 10101110 111101 01101110010 111110110111 10110111111 11111111101 101011011111 101111101010 101101101 11111 1111011010 1111110111011 1011111101010 0100110111 101110001110 0011101011110 11111111110101 110101 01011111110 100111110111 01110011100 1111111011 101111000111 11111111 010111111101 1110111 1010010101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,432 |
Words | 275 |
Sentences | 12 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 32 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 282 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 68 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 1:23 min read
- 322 Views
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