After The Visit
Thomas Hardy 1840 (Stinsford) – 1928 (Dorchester, Dorset)
Come again to the place
Where your presence was as a leaf that skims
Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims
The bloom on the farer's face.
Come again, with the feet
That were light on the green as a thistledown ball,
And those mute ministrations to one and to all
Beyond a man's saying sweet.
Until then the faint scent
Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded away,
And I marked not the charm in the changes of day
As the cloud-colours came and went.
Through the dark corridors
Your walk was so soundless I did not know
Your form from a phantom's of long ago
Said to pass on the ancient floors,
Till you drew from the shad
And I saw the large luminous living eyes
Regard me in fixed inquiring-wise
As those of a soul that weighed,
Scarce consciously,
The eternal question of what Life was,
And why we were there, and by whose strange laws
That which mattered most could not be.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 51 sec read
- 146 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AAAABCCBDEEDFGGHIJJKLMML |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 861 |
Words | 167 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 24 |
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"After The Visit" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Sep. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/36321/after-the-visit>.
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