On the departure platform - Hardy

Question 1

What is this about

Answer 1

His wife has died and he blames her for feeling how he feels

She is presented as leaving on a train and departing. He says his regret at losing her and how things will never be the same if she were ever to return.

The title is both literal as they are leaving at a platform, but also metaphorical as they are at the end of a relationship

Question 2

Themes

Answer 2

Loss

Grief

Relationship between the past and present

Modernity with the train

Question 3

Loss

Answer 3

“she left me” –> Enjambment

‘We kissed at the barrier; and passing through’ -> Caesura ’;’ -> metaphorical barrier between them

Question 4

Stanza 1

Answer 4

“and moment by moment got
Smaller and smaller” –> dimunates the woman

“smaller and smaller” –> Repetition –> feeling of inevitability. as the subject of the sentence appears to be inorexably shrinking.