Those are two of the most generic terms that can be used, house and man, and Thomas uses them as the title of this poem. They are two nouns without any specificity to tell anything more about them or what the poem could be about.
One hour: as dim as he and his house now look
As a reflection in a rippling brook,
While I remember him; but first, his house.
Empty it sounded. ’Twas dark with forest boughs
That brushed the walls and made the mossy tiles
Part of the squirrel’s track. In all those miles
Of forest silence and forest murmur, only
One house – “Lonely,” he said, I wish it were lonely” –
Which the trees looked upon from every side,
And that was his.
He waved good-bye to hide
A sigh that he converted to a laugh.
He seemed to hang rather than stand there, half
Ghost-like, half a beggar’s rag, clean wrung
And useless on the briar where it has hung
Long years a-washing by sun and wind and rain.
But why I call back man and house again
Is that now on a beech-tree’s tip I see
As then I saw – I at the gate, and he
In the house darkness, – a magpie veering about,
A magpie like a weathercock in doubt.
To begin with, Thomas uses the plain word house as opposed to ‘home’ which is used to describe an abode with the life of a family living there, or just a place in which one feels settled and doesn’t desire to live elsewhere. The word ‘house’ describes only a building that can become a home, but in this case it is just a house. The poem follows the order of the two generic terms in the title, with first stanza focusing on the house. We have the specificity at least of time – One hour – and from here the poem commences.
Thomas goes on to remember both the man and the house, but then focuses first on the house and the external scenery of the trees that are brushing its walls. He gives us a sense of the interior of the house by the short sentence – Empty it sounded. By beginning the sentence the descriptive, he emphasizes the emptiness, as if to say it did not just sound empty but it really was empty. Darkness surrounds the house with the forest boughs that brush the walls and there are mossy tiles that make up a squirrel’s track. He then tells us that this house is the only house for miles of forest silence and forest murmur. Edwards then brings the man, the occupant, into the poem again, but by speech as he says, “Lonely,” he said, “I wish it were lonely” – as the trees look upon every side of the house.
This is vague, the speech given by the man. We cannot determine if it was spoken to encourage Thomas’ visit to come to an end or if it tells us that the man really was not living alone, or if he wishes Thomas did not live in the area. He, the speaker, does not want human contact at all.
The next stanza begins with the anonymous man waving good-bye to Thomas in order to, as the poet says, hide a sigh that was turning into a laugh. Is it a false laugh? A forced laugh? We do not know. Thomas then paints a picture of the man thus – he seemed to hang there, instead of standing on the ground, half/Ghost-like, half a beggar’s rag; the break of the line at half is an intelligent technical break. The man seems like an old rag hung out affected by the elements of sun, wind and rain.
Thomas then brings us back around to the beginning of the poem, at least inferentially, by telling us why he has remembered the house and the man and it is because he himself is looking up at a beech-tree’s tip and is seeing, as he saw then at that instant, a magpie veering about, thus it was the bird that triggered his memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment