[Stylist] poem by Thomas Hardy

Sun Oct 16 20:51:54 UTC 2022

The Shadow on the Stone

Thomas Hardy - 1840-1928

      I went by the Druid stone 

   That stands in the garden white and lone,   

And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows   

   That at some moments there are thrown

   From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,   

   And they shaped in my imagining

To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders   

   Threw there when she was gardening.

      I thought her behind my back,

   Yea, her I long had learned to lack,

And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me,   

   Though how do you get into this old track?"

   And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf   

   As a sad response; and to keep down grief

I would not turn my head to discover

   That there was nothing in my belief.

      Yet I wanted to look and see

   That nobody stood at the back of me;

But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision   

   A shape which, somehow, there may be."

   So I went on softly from the glade,

   And left her behind me throwing her shade,   

As she were indeed an apparition-

   My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 16,
2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, whose books include Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the
Obscure, was one of the most influentual novelists and poets of England's
Victorian era. He died on January 11, 1928. 

               October 16, 2022 

               Made possible thanks to readers like you. 

The Shadow on the Stone

Thomas Hardy 

      I went by the Druid stone 

   That stands in the garden white and lone,   

And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows   

   That at some moments there are thrown

   From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,   

   And they shaped in my imagining

To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders   

   Threw there when she was gardening. 

      I thought her behind my back,

   Yea, her I long had learned to lack,

And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me,   

   Though how do you get into this old track?"

   And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf   

   As a sad response; and to keep down grief

I would not turn my head to discover

   That there was nothing in my belief. 

      Yet I wanted to look and see

   That nobody stood at the back of me;

But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision   

   A shape which, somehow, there may be."

   So I went on softly from the glade,

   And left her behind me throwing her shade,   

As she were indeed an apparition-

   My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 16,
2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day Podcast 

"The Shadow on the Stone" was first published in Moments of Vision and
Miscellaneous Verses (Macmillan and Co., 1917), though it was written
between the years 1913 and 1916 according to a note included with the poem.
Like many of Hardy's poems from this period, "The Shadow on the Stone" is
often considered to be a response to the death of his first wife, Emma
Gifford, who died suddenly on November 27, 1912. Still, many critics have
ventured beyond a strictly autobiographical reading of the poem, such as
Irish scholar Thomas Duddy, who, remarking on the poem's evocation of the
Orpheus-Eurydice myth in "The Shadow on the Stone: Memory and 'Vision' in
the Poetry of Thomas Hardy," published in The Hardy Society Journal vol. 8,
no. 1 (Spring 2012), writes that "[l]ike Orpheus, who was warned to resist
the temptation to look back at Eurydice, the narrator confesses to the
strength of his temptation to turn around, but he resolves, unlike Orpheus,
not to do anything that would deprive him of his sense of a presence behind
him." Later in the same essay, Duddy declares, "To wonder, in the aftermath
of reading such a poem, if there really could have been an apparition in the
garden, or if the narrator's experience was just an illusion or trick of the
mind, is to adopt an uncomprehending, reductive, anti-literary attitude to
both the kind of human experience that is preserved in the poem, and the
traditions of story, myth and belief that human communities have developed
in the course of responding to such experiences. Just as the shadow [. . .]
is as real to eye and mind as the stone on which it falls, so loved ones
remembered or 'sensed' in their grievous absence, are as real to memory and
imagination-and to the emotional life-as the apparitions of folklore and
myth."

Thomas Hardy, born on June 2, 1840, in Stinsford, England, was an English
poet and novelist. He is the author of many titles, including Far from the
Madding Crowd (Smoth, Elder & Co., 1874), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (James
R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., 1891), and Jude the Obscure (Osgood, McIlvaine,
& Co., 1895). He died on January 11, 1928.

Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses  

(Macmillan and Co., 1917)

               "The Little Ghost" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

read more

               "A Chilly Night" by Christina Rossetti

read more

Thanks to Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author of Cenzontle (BOA Editions,
2018), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read or listen to a
Q&A about Castillo's curatorial approach and find out more about our guest
editors for the year.  

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               October 16, 2022 

               Made possible thanks to readers like you. 

The Shadow on the Stone

Thomas Hardy 

      I went by the Druid stone 

   That stands in the garden white and lone,   

And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows   

   That at some moments there are thrown

   From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,   

   And they shaped in my imagining

To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders   

   Threw there when she was gardening. 

      I thought her behind my back,

   Yea, her I long had learned to lack,

And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me,   

   Though how do you get into this old track?"

   And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf   

   As a sad response; and to keep down grief

I would not turn my head to discover

   That there was nothing in my belief. 

      Yet I wanted to look and see

   That nobody stood at the back of me;

But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvision   

   A shape which, somehow, there may be."

   So I went on softly from the glade,

   And left her behind me throwing her shade,   

As she were indeed an apparition-

   My head unturned lest my dream should fade.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 16,
2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

Ann M. Chiappetta, M.S.

Making Meaningful ConnectionsThrough Media 

914.393.6605 USA

Anniecms64 at gmail.com <mailto:Anniecms64 at gmail.com> 

All things Annie: www.annchiappetta.com <http://www.annchiappetta.com>  

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