During Wind and Rain by Thomas Hardy

From Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, an anthology by Anthony and Ben Holden

During Wind and Rain 

by Thomas Hardy

They sing their dearest songs—

       He, she, all of them—yea,

       Treble and tenor and bass,

            And one to play;

      With the candles mooning each face. . . .

            Ah, no; the years O!

How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!

       They clear the creeping moss—

       Elders and juniors—aye,

       Making the pathways neat

            And the garden gay;

       And they build a shady seat. . . .

            Ah, no; the years, the years,

See, the white storm-birds wing across.

       They are blithely breakfasting all—

       Men and maidens—yea,

       Under the summer tree,

            With a glimpse of the bay,

       While pet fowl come to the knee. . . .

            Ah, no; the years O!

And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.

       They change to a high new house,

       He, she, all of them—aye,

       Clocks and carpets and chairs

          On the lawn all day,

       And brightest things that are theirs. . . .

          Ah, no; the years, the years; 

Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.

Ken Follett recommended the poem, noting:

I read this as a schoolboy, and even then I was overwhelmed by its melancholy. Half a century of rereading has shown me how clever it is. The rhyming scheme – ABC DCDA – and the stanza form are unique, as far as I know.  In each verse, the first five lines swing like a pop song, showing us a family engaged in  a merry project: singing, gardening, picnicking. Moving house is vividly evoked with a simple image of clocks  on the lawn.  But every stanza is a sucker punch. In the last two lines of each the rhythm falters, and decay and death are evoked until the end, when we realize that the poet is standing in a rain-wet graveyard, look­ing at the tombstones, and everyone in that happy family is now dead.

Double click to enlarge.