Afterwards -Hardy

Summary

Stanza 1 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Line 1

WHEN the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,

The speaker starts off on a cheerful note: these first lines basically say, "When I'm dead…." Of course, Hardy doesn't put it so bluntly, and some of his language is pretty ambiguous. Let's look more closely at the language – the "Present" is shutting the back door ("postern") on the speaker's life.

The fact that time ("Present") is "latching" the back door on the speaker's life suggests that he's afraid that he'll slip away and won't be remembered at all.

"Tremulous stay" is also difficult – it refers to his "stay" on earth, or his life. Why would he call his life "tremulous," or "trembling"? Is it because, as an old man, the poet's hands aren't as steady as they used to be? Maybe, but it could also be more universal than that. Perhaps the poet is suggesting that all life is uncertain and shaky.

"Stay" also suggests the idea of structural support ("stays" are the ropes that help support the mast and sails on big sailing ships, and the word also describes other kinds of support structures, like in old-fashioned lady's undergarments). "Stay" implies structure and steady support, and "tremulous" means shaky, so the juxtaposition of "tremulous" and "stay" creates an oxymoron, or a contradiction in terms.

Lines 2-3

And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk,

The speaker has imagined that he is dead, but instead of following that up with a bleak wintry landscape, he says that it's springtime – this comes as a bit of a surprise.

The words, "delicate" and "new-spun silk" could describe the new spring leaves on the trees (which are, after all, very delicate and tender when they first come out), but "delicate" and "new-spun-silk" could also be paired with the "wings" – so the "glad green leaves" are as "delicate" as butterfly wings.

"Silk," the fabric of choice for many in the 1990s, is produced from the cocoons of the silkworm – so the "new-spun silk," although referring most obviously to the delicate, silky new leaves in the month of May, also suggests cocoons and metamorphosis from caterpillar into moth or butterfly.

There's a lot of movement in this description ("flap[ping]", spinning silk, new growth) considering that the speaker of the poem is imagining the world after his death.

Lines 3-4

[…] will the neighbours say,"He was a man who used to notice such things"?

The speaker wonders whether, after he has died, his neighbors will remember that he used to enjoy the springtime.

This question is repeated at the end of each stanza, like a repeating chorus or refrain. The question of what his neighbors will think of him after he has died becomes almost an obsession for the speaker.

Stanza 2 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 5-7

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alightUpon the wind-warped upland thorn,

Lines 5-7 elaborate on the scene: it's "dusk," it's a lot gloomier than the springtime scene of the first stanza, and a "dewfall-hawk" (i.e., a hawk that comes out at "dewfall," or dusk) flies as quietly as you blink (completely silently, unless you hang castanets on your eyelashes) and lands on a shrub.

No, "dewfall-hawk" isn't a real species of hawk, so don't bother looking it up in your bird guides. In line 5, it's not immediately clear what the "it" is that the speaker is referring to in the first line

of this stanza, but he seems to be referring to the moment of his death, and imagining that "it" will take place at "dusk".

Lines 7-8

[…] a gazer may think,"To him this must have been a familiar sight."

Again, the speaker repeats the question of whether people will remember him, but this time, it's not phrased as a question, but as a statement.

He's still not certain that he'll be remembered, though – the whole stanza is a hypothetical statement ("If…"), and he only says that the "gazer may think." Not nearly as confident as the "gazer will think".

Also, he's switched from imagining what his "neighbours" will think of him to what the more anonymous "gazer" might think.

Stanza 3 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Line 9

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,

It starts again with the hypothetical "if" – now the speaker is imagining what might happen if he should "pass," or die, on a warm summer night.

"Mothy" seems like a weird word choice – it reminds us of summer nights when moths are flitting around outside (or inside, if you don't have screens up), but it also sounds kind of like "moth-eaten".

Lines 10-12

When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."

On the warm summer night described above, the speaker imagines a "hedgehog" sneaking ("furtively") across the grass.

Why is the hedgehog being "furtive"? Well, it's a wild animal, and it's on a human's "lawn," so it's probably in danger of being trapped or shot at or shooed away.

The next line suggests that the speaker would like to be remembered as a protector of these "innocent" animals, like the hedgehog.

But the last line of the stanza kind of deflates that idea – people might remember him as a hedgehog lover, but they'll also remember that he wasn't able to do much to help them, and now that he's dead and gone, he can't do a thing.

This is awfully sad – the speaker is obviously alive as he is writing, and he's imagining that after he's dead, his life ambitions (to take care of "innocent creatures") will have been for nothing.

Stanza 4 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 13-14

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,

Another stanza opening with that hypothetical "if" construction! Now the speaker imagines that his friends and neighbors will hear about his death while

standing in an open doorway, looking up at the night sky. (Except that it's a "winter" sky – they probably shouldn't be standing with the door open.)

Lines 15-16

Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?

The speaker wonders whether the night sky will inspire his friends to remember him as someone who loved stargazing.

This stanza, like stanzas 1 and 5, is constructed as a question.

Stanza 5 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Line 17

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,

This is the first stanza since the first that does not open with "if." It starts with a question, instead.

The "bell of quittance" is the bell that is tolled at a church when someone dies. The speaker imagines a kind of clichéd "gloom" around his own death – like if you're feeling

angsty, and you imagine that whoever it was that you're angry at will at least feel sorry after you're dead.

Lines 18-20

And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its out-rollings,Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom, "He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?

The tolling of the bell that the speaker imagines is momentarily interrupted by a cross breeze. The "out-rollings" refer to the sound of the bell, but it's a made-up word, and it sounds kind of

like a wave on the ocean that might pull a swimmer "out" under the "rolling" waves. After the brief interruption to the sound of the bell from the breeze, the "out-rollings" of the

bell are heard again. After the pause, it almost seems like a new bell. The phrase "rise again" and the emphasis on "new bell's boom" suggests a possible hopeful note

at the end of this gloomy poem – maybe there's a possibility of life after death for the poet? At least he might live on in the minds and memories of his neighbors? Maybe?

The final line is back to the doom and gloom: the speaker's friends and neighbors say to themselves that the speaker used to notice "such things," like the cool effect the wind had on the sound of the bell, but he's past caring about such things now.

Since the final stanza is one long sentence that is structured as a question, the entire poem ends with a question mark – perhaps inviting the reader to interpret it.

Analysis

Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

There’s more to a poem than meets the eye.

Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Never fear, Shmoop is here. Check out our "How to Read a Poem" section for a glossary of terms.

How many different synonyms for "death" can you think of?

The poem is a meditation on death, but the speaker never once uses the words "death" or "die." How does he manage that? By using a slew of euphemisms to describe death, and by employing a lot of figurative language. Why doesn't he use the word "death"? Why not be more explicit, since that's what the poem is pretty obviously getting at? Maybe because he doesn't want "death" to sound so final. In this poem, people continue to exist after they die, if only in the memories of their friends and neighbors.

The title: "Afterwards" refers to the speaker's death – an event that, at the time of writing, obviously hadn't happened yet (since the poem wasn't written by a zombie Hardy). There's also a possible pun here: the speaker is thinking about what will happen "after words." What will happen to his memory as a poet? Will people remember his words after he's dead?

Line 1: Here's the first extended metaphor describing death. Death is when the "Present" moment closes, or "latches" the "postern" (back door) on the speaker's "tremulous stay," or "trembling life." The "postern" is an old-fashioned word, even for Hardy's time – it usually refers to the back door of a big castle or fortress. Using that word, instead of "front door," suggests that the poet might be afraid that no one will notice his death – it'll be like slipping quietly out a back door.

Line 5: The simile in this line ("like an eyelid's soundless blink") refers to the flight of the "dewfall-hawk" of line 6, but it could also make the reader think of the poet's death. Like the "postern" of line 1, this image could reflect the poet's anxiety that he won't be remembered when he dies – he'll just die quietly, "like an eyelid's soundless blink."

Line 12: Here's a common euphemism for death: the neighbors say, "now he is gone" instead of "now he is dead." The word "gone" suggests that the speaker has moved on to something else; it doesn't suggest the kind of finality that "dead" does.

Line 14: Here's another euphemism: the speaker says, "stilled" instead of "dead." Sounds kind of peaceful, doesn't it?

Line 15: The speaker uses synecdoche when he says that his neighbors "will meet my face no more": he writes "face" as a stand-in for the whole person.

Line 17: The "bell of quittance," or the bell that tolls when a person dies, metonymically refers to the speaker's death through association.

Nature and Renewal

For all the euphemisms and metaphors describing death in this poem, there are a lot of more upbeat images of nature, life, and renewal, too. Thank goodness, or this poem would be depressing as heck. As it is, the natural images balance out some of the more melancholy bits that we pointed out above.

Line 2: The alliteration of "May month" and "glad green" draws attention to the natural images of spring in this stanza, creating almost a skipping rhythm in this line. The simile at the end of the line compares the "green leaves" to birds' "wings."

Line 3, 5, 6, 14, 18: The poet sure likes making up compound words to describe beautiful images in nature, doesn't he? Why are there so many compound words here? It's as though common English words are inadequate to describe the beauty he wanted to convey, so he comes up with his own words to do the job. Words like "delicate-filmed" (3) and "full-starred" (14) don't seem quite so unusual, but "dewfall-hawk" (6)? That's not a real kind of hawk! But there are hawks that come out at dusk, or "dewfall." "Dewfall" also contains the word "fall" in it, which is appropriate, given the downward, sorrowful pull of this poem.

Line 10: The cute little "hedgehog" of this stanza could be read as a stand-in for all of the things that the poet feels he hasn't been able to accomplish in his life. It's an "innocent creature" that he has tried to protect, but "he could do little for them."

Line 19: This is probably the most hopeful line in the poem, with the words "rise again" and "new bell" suggesting the possibility of life after death and renewal.

Seasons

Each of the stanzas takes place during a different season. The poet can't seem to make up his mind what as to what season he'll end up dying in, so he hedges his bets and imagines all the possibilities. In the first stanza, he imagines dying during spring; the third is summer; and the fourth is winter. Strangely, winter isn't the bad guy here – in most poems about death, you'd expect winter, or at least autumn, to play a big role in setting the mood, but that's not necessarily the case here.

Line 2: The poet describes the month of May as though it were a bird "flapping" its "wings." This is kind of like personification, only the poet is giving the month of May the attributes of a bird, rather than of a person. We'll call it "birdification."

Line 14: He personifies winter when he says that it "sees" the starry skies.

The Passage of Time

If each stanza takes place during a different season and the whole poem is a meditation on death, you better believe that the passage of time is an important category here. Even the title of the poem plays with the idea of time: "Afterwards?" After…what? When? Check out the "What's Up with the Title?" section of this module, and then come back for more examples of symbols, imagery, and wordplay having to do with the passage of time.

Line 1: The "Present" moment of time is personified in the very first line – the "Present" is kind of like the grim reaper. It's the guy who shuts the door on the speaker's life.

Line 1: "Postern" could also be read as a pun on the word "posterity," which means the future generations that live after you.

Line 15: The "bell of quittance," or the church bell that gets rung when a person dies, is actually the same bell that gets rung in the church tower every hour, anyway, so the ringing of the "bell of quittance," which marks the passing of a person's life, could just sound like the bell marking the passage of another hour.

Rhyme, Form & Meter

We’ll show you the poem’s blueprints, and we’ll listen for the music behind the words.

Quatrains in Rhyme

The poem is divided into five 4-line stanzas, called quatrains. Each quatrain has an ABAB rhyme pattern (look at the first quatrain: "stay" rhymes with "say," and "wings" rhymes with "things").

The meter is a little bit tougher: there isn't a rigidly set number of syllables per line, like you'd find in a sonnet. Notice how long all the lines are – in some editions of the poem, there isn't even enough space to fit all the words in each line, so they spill over into the next (if you thought your edition was numbering the lines wrong, that's what's going on). It's as though the speaker wants to stretch out each line as long as possible – and for a poem about the passage of time and the inevitability of death, we can't really blame him for wanting to drag his feet a little.

The lines that are in quotation marks – the last line or two of each stanza – are hardly in verse at all. Because the poet is imagining what his neighbors would say, those lines almost read like prose, or regular, conversational dialogue.

Speaker Point of View

Who is the speaker, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

The speaker of "Afterwards" is an older man – someone who feels that his own death is near at hand. Makes sense – after all, Hardy wrote it when he was 77 years old. Hardy has a reputation for being dark and melancholy, but even though this is a poem about death, it's surprisingly un-depressing. The tone of the poem is more wistful than bitter: the speaker wants to be remembered, but is afraid that he'll be forgotten entirely. More specifically, he wants to be remembered as someone sensitive to the subtle beauties in nature.

Setting

Where It All Goes Down

The setting of the poem is difficult to pin down because it changes with every stanza, depending on where and when the speaker is imagining his death. All of the possible settings suggest the countryside – sometimes in May, sometimes in winter, sometimes at night, sometimes at dusk, but always surrounded by the beauties of nature. The last stanza has a church ringing the "bell of quittance," and the neighbors appear in every stanza, so we're guessing that the poem-world is in a quiet, English country village – not unlike the village of Stinsford, where Hardy spent most of his adult life.

Sound Check

Read this poem aloud. What do you hear?

Try reading the poem out loud. It's just a series of five questions, so how hard can it be? The answer: pretty hard. The lines are so long that it's easy to lose track of where you are, and each stanza is its own sentence, so the whacky sentence structure isn't much of a help, either. But don't worry – part of the fun of this poem is getting lost in the evocative images of each stanza. It's so easy to get caught up in the imagery that the move from the poetic descriptions of nature in the first three lines of each stanza to the quotation of what the neighbors will say can feel almost jarring. Compare the sound of "He was a man who used to notice such things" (4) to:

[…] like an eyelid's soundless blink,The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alightUpon the wind-warped upland thorn […] (5-7)

It's almost as though you check out of the poetry-world for the last line of each stanza; the neighbors don't seem to live in the same plane as the speaker. But if you're not all that comfortable with reading the poem out loud, the breaks in the meter and poetic language that come with the neighbors' dialogue can feel like a welcome break.

The poem is full of alliteration and assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds) that make you slow down as you read it out loud. Some of the lines are a real mouthful – look at line 2, especially: "And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings." It's like a tongue-twister. But the final line of each stanza, when the speaker imagines what the neighbors will say, is much more like prose. The parts in quotation marks don't sound like poetry at all! These more conversational lines come almost as a relief after the tongue-twisting lines that trip you up and slow you down earlier in each stanza.

What’s Up With the Title?

"Afterwards" seems like a fairly easy title – it is, after all, only one word. But like most of Hardy's poetry, there's more to this deceptively simple title than meets the eye. The word "afterwards" is an adverb – it describes when something happens. So the title suggests the continual forward movement of time, since the poem takes place in the future, after some event that hasn't happened yet at the time it is being written.

But "after" what? What event does the poem refer to in the title? To the death of the speaker: the entire poem is a meditation on what will happen "afterwards" – after he dies. There's also a possible pun in the title – the poet wants to know how he'll be remembered as a writer. Will people remember his words? What will happen "after words"? There's a lot of weird ambiguity having to do with the passage of time all wrapped up in that deceptively simple title.

Thomas Hardy’s Calling Card

What is the poet’s signature style?

Depressing descriptions of birds

If you're reading a poem with a lot of bird imagery that could be interpreted as a symbol for death, you've probably got your hands on a Hardy poem. One of his other well-known poems, "The Darkling Thrush," describes a bird that sings hopefully despite its gloomy surroundings. Hardy's poetry is often described briefly as dark, depressing, or morbidly obsessed with failure and disappointment. But we all like a little angst in our reading material to pull on the old heartstrings, don't we?

Tough-O-Meter

We’ve got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you’ll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)

(3) Base Camp

There's a lot going on in this poem as far as poetic diction and figurative language, but once you get past the tough vocabulary words like "postern," it's a pretty accessible poem. You don't need to be a critical genius to get a lot out of it – just a careful and attentive reader.

Trivia

Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge

Thomas Hardy wanted to be buried next to his wife in the churchyard of their hometown, but his executor had other ideas: he wanted to bury the famous writer in the "Poets' Corner" of Westminster Cathedral, in London. Hardy's family and the executor came to a compromise:

Hardy's body was buried at Westminster, but his heart was buried next to his wife, Emma, in Stinsford. There's a crazy rumor that the housekeeper who was in charge of getting Hardy's heart to Stinsford left it sitting on the kitchen table, and a cat ate it. The housekeeper, stricken with guilt, replaced Hardy's heart with a pig's heart from the butcher. This is probably just an urban legend, but we'll never know for sure!

Hardy taught himself to read.

After critics reacted with shock and horror to the "immorality" of Hardy's last few novels (especially Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure), Hardy gave up writing fiction altogether and switched entirely to poetry. He liked poetry better, anyway.

Steaminess Rating

Exactly how steamy is this poem?

There's no sex in this poem. After all, it's about dying, and as a rule, it's best not to mix the two. It's not that Hardy had nothing to say about sex (just flip over to Tess of the D'Urbervilles if you don't believe us), but he generally left it out of his poetry.

Allusions & Cultural References

When poets refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.

Literature, Philosophy, and Mythology

"rise again" (line 19): This could be a reference to the Christian belief in physical resurrection on Judgment Day.

Historical References

"postern" (line 1): This word is so startlingly old-fashioned in this modernist poem that we're going to classify it as a historical reference. A "postern" is the back door out of a castle, but it sure wasn't in common usage at the time Hardy was writing.

Themes

Theme of Mortality

In this poem, the speaker reflects on how he will be remembered after he is dead. Oddly, the poet never once uses the word "death" or "die" – go to "Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay" for some of the euphemisms and metaphors he uses to avoid saying the D-word. Thomas Hardy was getting old when he wrote this – he was 77 years old – and he was worried about how he was going to be

remembered. Yes, this is heavy stuff. But never fear: there are other, less depressing, themes to look at if this one gets you too down in the dumps.

Mortality Quotes

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, (1)

This has got to be the most roundabout way of saying "When I die" that we've ever heard. "Tremulous stay" (i.e., the poet's "stay" on earth, or his life) suggests that all life is fragile, trembling, or "tremulous." The idea of fragile, delicate life connects with the "delicate-filmed" leaves that are described in line 3.

If it be in the dusk […] (5)

This is a more usual setting for describing someone's death – the first stanza, with all its spring imagery, hasn't really set the funereal mood we were expecting. "Dusk" seems less unexpected…of course, Hardy upsets the apple cart again with the unusual imagery that follows, but let's take what we can get.

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness […] (9)

Again, it's a common, almost clichéd way of describing death – we always hear about people "passing away" or "passing on." But here, there's no preposition following the word "pass." He just "passes" – he doesn't "pass away." It sounds like he has just passed someone in a hallway or something. It's as though he's imagining his own spirit "passing" the living after he has died. Oooh, creepy.

[…] when hearing that I have been stilled at last […] (13)

Here's yet another euphemism for death! But instead of the motion implied by "pass" (9), the poet (and his ghostly spirit) has been "stilled."

[…] those who will meet my face no more (15)

This is another way of describing death, but this time, he's doing it through the people who are left behind – the folks who will "meet [his] face no more."

[…] when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom (17)

The "bell of quittance" is the bell rung in a church tower that marks the death of a person in the neighborhood. Naturally, the bell would be ringing "in the gloom." Again, it's an almost clichéd way of describing death, but like the "dusk" and "nocturnal blackness" above, it's saved from being cliché by the unusual images that come after.

Theme of Man and the Natural World

If you're all depressed from the death stuff in "Afterwards," don't worry; there are plenty of natural images that suggest life and renewal, to counteract all the doom and gloom. Hardy liked balance in his writing. Even when everything seems about as depressing as it can get, there's bound to be a ray of sunshine, somewhere. In "Afterwards," that ray of hope comes in the form of the speaker's relationship to the natural world. The series of unexpected, unusual natural images creates a web of interrelated ideas: the images of one stanza loosely connect with the images of other stanzas.

Man and the Natural World Quotes

And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk […] (2)

The month of May is described as a bird or winged insect that "flaps" its "leaves like wings." The leaf/wings are "delicate-filmed," like a baby bird's or a butterfly's. This image connects to the word "tremulous" the poet uses to describe his own fragile, uncertain life in line 1. "New-spun silk" could also suggest butterflies coming out of silken cocoons, so there's a hinted allusion to metamorphosis or transformation in this line.

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alightUpon the wind-warped upland thorn, […] (5-7)

The "dewfall-hawk" is a hawk that comes out at "dewfall," or dusk. It glides silently ("like an eyelid's soundless blink") across the shadows to land on a thorny shrub. Notice all the compound words here, like "dewfall-hawk," and "wind-warped."

[…]mothy and warm (9)

The darkness is described as "mothy and warm" in this stanza – "warm" we understand. It's a warm summer night. But describing the darkness (or "nocturnal blackness") as "mothy" seems a bit more unexpected. Hardy sure was fond of those unexpected images. So what does "mothy" do? Well, it brings to mind those warm summer nights when the moths flutter around the lights. The word could also connect back to the butterfly imagery of the first stanza ("delicate-filmed as new-spun silk").

When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn (10)

Here's another unexpected, unusual nature image. The "hedgehog" is moving "furtively," or cautiously, across the grass. It's nighttime – why is it being so cautious? It could connect back to the "dewfall-hawk" of the previous stanza.

Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees (14)

Wait a minute – "winter" can't "see" anything – it's a season, not a person. It's being personified (go to the "Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay" section for more on that). The neighbors who are "watching" the stars are being subtly, or implicitly, compared to "winter," which also "sees" the stars. So maybe people and nature aren't as separate as they might seem?

"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries (16)

The speaker of the poem is also connected to the neighbors and to the "winter" through the same idea of watching the stars. He's a person who "had an eye" for "mysteries" like stargazing.

Theme of Memory and the Past

This poem is a meditation on death, but it's not just about the act of dying – it's about how the speaker imagines that he will be remembered after his death. Will he be remembered as a poet? Or as a novelist? Or as a nature lover? Or will he be forgotten immediately and left to rot in his house until the neighbors came by to check on the smell? The relationship of the present to the past (and to the future) has a lot to do with memory.

Memory and the Past QuotesHow we cite the quotes:

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay (1)

This is kind of a weird, unexpected way to open a poem: the "Present" moment (which hasn't actually happened yet at the time the poem was written) shuts the back door ("postern") of life on the speaker. It's as though the "Present" moment of time has it in for the speaker: we can just imagine the "Present" kicking the speaker out, yelling, "don't let the "postern" door hit you on the way out!" Maybe the past was kinder to the speaker?

[…] will the neighbours say, (3)

The speaker introduces one of the main ideas of the poem – the question of what his neighbors will say about him after he's dead.

"He was a man who used to notice such things" (4)

The speaker uses the present and the future tense throughout the first part of each stanza, and then switches to the past tense when quoting what he imagines the neighbors will say: "He was a man who used to notice such things." The "such things" seems odd, too, especially after this absolutely amazing scene from nature in which the month of May turns into a bird or a butterfly "flapping" its wings. The neighbors just sum all that up by calling it "such things"? Do they just not get it?

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness (9)

The word "pass" here could be a pun on the word "past" – and when someone "passes" (i.e., dies), he switches from the present to the past, so the pun could make sense.

Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more (15)

The "thought" that "rises" is a memory of the speaker, but it's almost an unconscious memory – the neighbors "who will meet [his] face no more" aren't expecting to recall the speaker, but the beauty of the stars makes the "thought rise" in their minds without them being aware of it.

"He hears it not now, but used to notice such things" (20)

This sentence strongly juxtaposes the present and the past: it starts with the present tense, and then shuts the speaker out of the present and puts him in the past as firmly as the "Present" slammed that "postern" door on him in the first line: the speaker "hears it not now, but used to notice such things."

Theme of Time

Unsurprisingly, given the importance of "Memory and the Past" to "Afterwards," Hardy also has a lot to say about the passage of time, aging, and the way our consciousness changes through time. He plays around a lot with verb tenses so that it's hard to tell when the poem takes place. Even the title refers to a particular moment in time: go check out the "What's Up with the Title?" section for more on that.

Time Quotes […] my tremulous stay (1)

The "tremulous," or tremblingly fragile "stay" on earth is, like many of the images in the poem, unexpected. Why can't he just call it his "life," since that's what he means? Calling his life his "tremulous stay" calls attention to the uncertainty of life (it is "tremulous") and to the passage of time; it's a "stay," or a visit, of a certain period.

[…] like an eyelid's soundless blink (5)

This simile describes the silent flight of the "dewfall-hawk," but the "blink" of the "eyelid" also sounds like the way we describe something that happens quickly – something that goes by "in the blink of an eye." This could be a way for the speaker to imply that life is brief, and goes by "like an eyelid's soundless blink."

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door (13)

The word "stilled" as a euphemism for death implies that the speaker's forward progress has been frozen. But even the news that the speaker has "been stilled" is enough to freeze the neighbors, too. They "stand at the door," as if uncertain whether to go in or out.

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, (17)

Here, the speaker does away with any "if" statement – he knows that his "bell of quittance" will someday be heard. So he doesn't bother with "If my bell of quittance is heard." Death is unavoidable, so the bell marking his death is, too.

And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its out-rollings, (18)

Death, and the accompanying funeral bells, might be unavoidable, but somehow nature is able to interrupt it. The "crossing breeze" is able to "cut a pause," or interrupt the sound of the bell. It's as though the breeze were able to disrupt the flow of time itself.

Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom (19)

Of course, the "breeze" can't stop the flow of time forever – the sound of the bells picks up again when the breeze dies down. But the words "rise again" suggest the possibility of life after death by alluding to the Christian idea of physical resurrection on Judgment Day, and the alliteration of the "new bell's boom" draws our attention to the "newness" of the bells, which suggest the possibility of renewal. At least the poem doesn't end on a totally depressing note.

Study Questions

Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.

1. Why are there so many made-up compound words, like "Delicate-filmed" (3) and "dewfall-hawk (6) and "wind-warped" (7)?

2. How might this poem have been influenced by the greater context of World War I?3. This poem relies on a lot of natural images, like the "hedgehog" (10) and the "glad green

leaves" (2), so we usually call it a nature poem. Is it possible to read parts of it as supernatural?

4. Is the tone of the imagined dialogue of the speaker's neighbors different from the tone of the rest of the poem? How so? Why do you think that is?

5. How does the speaker wish to be remembered? How would you want to be remembered, if you were writing your own "Afterwards"?

Questions About Mortality

1. Why does the speaker use hypothetical statements (beginning with "If") to describe his death? Isn't death inevitable?

2. Why does the speaker never use the word "death"? Why does he resort to euphemisms and metaphor to describe it?

3. How many different ways of describing death does the speaker come up with?4. How do the different sense perceptions that are evoked in the poem (the beauty of the "glad

green leaves," the "warm" summer night, and the sound of the "bell of quittance") impact the idea of impending death?

Chew on ThisTry on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

The speaker of "Afterwards" uses euphemisms for "death" that suggest forward progression, rather than finality.

By starting the poem with the month of May, the poet suggests that the theme of death might be relieved by a springtime renewal.

Questions About Man and the Natural World

1. Hardy uses a lot of compound words, like "Delicate-filmed" (3), "dewfall-hawk" (6) and "wind-warped" (7) to describe natural images. Why does he resort to these largely made-up words to describe nature?

2. Stanza 1 takes place in "May" (2), Stanza 4 takes place in winter (14), and the "warm" night of Stanza 3 suggests summer. Where's autumn, and how can you tell?

3. Why does the speaker hope to be remembered as someone who is sensitive to nature, rather than as a writer?

4. Are the neighbors able to appreciate nature in the same way that the speaker does? Why or why not, and how can you tell?

Chew on ThisTry on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

The speaker of "Afterwards" uses unexpected, unusual metaphors to describe natural images, frequently using invented words, in order to highlight his unusual sensitivity to such things.

Questions About Memory and the Past

1. Why is the poem all about the speaker's neighbors who will remember him, and not about his own memories of his life?

2. Why are the neighbors' reminiscences about the speaker set off in quotation marks as though they represent directly reported speech? Isn't the speaker just imagining what they'd say, anyway?

3. Why does the poet break from the poetic meter and language of the first three lines of each stanza, writing the neighbors' remarks in a more prosaic style?

4. The "Present" is personified in the first line. Since the whole poem is about how the speaker will be remembered, why isn't the past personified as well?

Chew on ThisTry on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

The neighbors' reported speech in "Afterwards" is written in prose to emphasize the difference between their language and the poet's – between their observation of nature and the poet's heightened sensitivity to it.

The poet hopes to be remembered as a nature lover, rather than as a great poet, because the two are concomitant: poetry can only be written by those who are sensitive observers of nature.

Questions About Time

1. Over the course of the poem, how much time passes in the imagination of the speaker?2. How is the passage of time marked in this poem?3. Because the poem takes place in the present, as the poet imagines what will happen in the

future while his neighbors recall the past, the speaker has his hands full managing verb tenses. How does he do it? Is it at all confusing? At which points?

Chew on This Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

The ringing of the "bell of quittance" marks the passage of time, but the wind that interrupts the sound of the bell suggests that the passage of time can somehow be disrupted, if only momentarily.

The neighbors standing on the threshold of the door (13) parallels the poet's sense that he, too, is on a threshold, about to depart through the "postern" (1) of life.