At Castle Boterel
Thomas Hardy
1840 to 1928
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. You can also print out the jumbled poem to cut up and reassemble in the classroom. Either way, take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
I look behind at the fading byway,
In dry March weather. We climb the road
And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
Is – that we two passed.
Primaeval rocks form the road's steep border,
Distinctly yet
And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour,
What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
Myself and a girlish form benighted
And I shall traverse old love's domain
As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
A time of such quality, since or before,
Of the transitory in Earth's long order;
And much have they faced there, first and last,
Without rude reason till hope is dead,
In that hill's story? To one mind never,
The substance now, one phantom figure
To ease the sturdy pony's load
March 1913
I look back at it amid the rain
But what they record in colour and cast
Saw us alight.
It filled but a minute. But was there ever
Remains on the slope, as when that night
And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
Matters not much, nor to what it led, –
And feeling fled.
I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
When he sighed and slowed.
Something that life will not be balked of
Never again.
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
By thousands more.