Featured Poem: The Self-Unseeing by Thomas Hardy

The poem opens in a sad tone with imagery of death. The lines, “Here is the ancient floor, / Footworn and hollowed and thin,” are symbolic of being worn down by a hard life. Hardy is describing himself in these lines. With the next lines, “Here was the former door/ Where the dead feet walked in,” Hardy is describing the people in his life that he has lost to death. This unhappy first stanza also shows a longing for a time that has pass by.

The next stanza has a much more uplifting tone. Hardy is remembering much happier times in these lines. The first two lines, “She sat here in her chair, / Smiling into the fire,” are a reference to his mother. The biography explains that not only did Hardy’s father play the violin but he also taught his son a command of the instrument. With this knowledge the reader can see that the lines, “He who played stood there, / Bowing it higher and higher,” are a reference to Hardy’s father playing the violin. These are cherished memories to the poet.

The last stanza has a melancholy tone full of yearning that is similar to the start of the poem which helps to bring the piece full circle. In the poem when Hardy says, “Childlike, I danced in a dream; / Blessings emblazoned that day,” he is longing for the memories and people he mentioned earlier. The last lines, “Everything glowed with a gleam / Yet we were looking away,” are an outcry by the poet for the parts of his life that slipped through his hands too quickly.