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At Castle Boterel
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The poem is a recollection of an incident that took
place some 40 yrs before between him and Emma
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The general tone of this poem is that of nostalgia and regret
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But the recollection
of past memories is always accompanied by pain and the bitterness of separation
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Still the poet feels guilt and loss
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Love can be said to conquer time in this poem, but that conquest is short-lived
because while in the middle stanzas of the poem, Hardy gains more confidence in his memory, the end of
the poem brings a fading effect to it
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The first stanza of the poem opens in the present time with Hardy driving to the junction of a lane and
highway in a 'wagonette' with rain
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As he looked behind, the present seems to fade and merge into a past
moment and he gets a rewarding vision of his wife and himself on the hillside
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the poet draws a direct contrast between the drizzly wet present of the first stanza with the dry
season in his past recollection to show how, at that time he was happy
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The memory of Hardy seems full of descriptive details about the alighting from the poney which
again underlines its vividness
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What this
"something" was is not clear but it seems to refer to a declaration of love
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Even if it took only a few minutes, Hardy
says that there was no other "time of such quality"
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He again defies time
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he wants to
create a sense of permanence in the "Primaeval rocks", a permanence that time will not be able to
eradicate
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So
the quality of that moment will remain forever too
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The repetition of this word brings out a certain helplessness and despair
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He realises that he is becoming old, "for my sand is
sinking" and will never return to this place again
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The poem ends in a note of resignation as the poet
gives up and goes away never to come back
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The movement of the poet's
memory from resent to past and back, brings a certain vividness to the poem
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and the use of the hour glass imagery in the end adds
a sense of urgency to it
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