Thomas Hardy's "After the Visit" in a beautiful and
interesting poem. It is made up of six stanza, a total of twenty-four lines, and its
rhyme scheme is abba, abba, etc.
In order to best
understand the meaning of the last stanza, I found it necessary to try to understand
what Hardy had been saying throughout the whole poem, especially in the fifth stanza
because the thought of the sixth stanza is a continuation of a sentence (and thought)
that starts in the fifth stanza.
The
title "After the Visit" makes me wonder if the entire poem is not about a ghost, for the
fourth stanza alludes to a ghost, and sometimes when ghosts are
allegedly seen, it is called a visitation.
Starting in the
fourth stanza, the speaker notes that he thought "she" might be like the "phantom" that
is said to walk the "ancient floors," until she stepped from the shade and he saw her
"living eyes" which looked at him with an "inquiring" gaze of a soul that thought about
(almost unconsciously) the "eternal question" of "What is life,"
and "why are we here," and finally, whose laws decided that what matters most in life,
cannot be?
Poetry is specific to the person who reads it,
in that each person brings something different—based on personal experiences—to that
reading of a poem. Now that I have a sense of the last three stanzas, I can
imagine what Hardy might be writing about: but
these are just my impressions.
If the speaker is addressing
a ghost, the question at the end might be directed to the "strange laws" that keep the
speaker and the woman he sees apart, separated by life and
death.
The closing stanza could simply refer to a man and a
woman who care for each other, but who are separated by age, marital status, social
standing, or some other extenuating circumstance where being together ("what matters
most") cannot be.
The entire poem seems to share images of
the past, whether dealing with a living person or a ghost. (Hardy's reference to "living
eyes" might refer simply to a fire or glow within the eyes, present under
any circumstance: it need not be literal—it's a poem.) He speaks to
a woman, saying at the start of the first two stanzas, "Come
again..."
It would seem that time has passed and the
speaker hasn't really noticed it:
...the bordering flowers swam unheeded
away,
And I marked not the charm in the changes of
day
As the cloud-colours came and
went.
When "she" travels down
the dark corridor and comes out of the shade, her eyes simply seem to unconsciously
ponder questions that have been asked through the ages, looking for understanding, and
finding perhaps bewilderment or disappointment that whoever is in charge of "life," or
governs us, keeps us from things are not meant to be or can never
be.
My last thought is that Harding wrote poetry more
toward the end of his writing career. He also lost his wife in 1912. This
could be a poem he wrote after Emma's death. Additionally, Harding
lost touch with his faith and could not seem to get it back, or cared not to even try:
"by those strange laws / That which mattered most could not be" may also refer to his
lost faith in God, referring instead to a mysterious power that chooses to make
decisions for us in life where we are left with a sense of futility as to why that power
chose a particular path for us—as if there were no rhyme or reason to those decisions
made in our lives.
These are my perceptions. I hope they
are of some help.
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