“At Castle Boterel” Summary

“At Castle Boterel” Themes

• 

  Love, Memory, and Time

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• 

  Looking Back and Letting Go

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “At Castle Boterel”

• Lines 1-5

  As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
  And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
  I look behind at the fading byway,
  And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
  Distinctly yet

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 6-10

  Myself and a girlish form benighted
  In dry March weather. We climb the road
  Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
  To ease the sturdy pony's load
  When he sighed and slowed.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-15

  What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
  Matters not much, nor to what it led,—
  Something that life will not be balked of
  Without rude reason till hope is dead,
  And feeling fled.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 16-20

  It filled but a minute. But was there ever
  A time of such quality, since or before,
  In that hill's story? To one mind never,
  Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
  By thousands more.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 21-25

  Primaeval rocks form the road's steep border,
  And much have they faced there, first and last,
  Of the transitory in Earth's long order;
  But what they record in colour and cast
  Is—that we two passed.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 26-30

  And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour,
  In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
  The substance now, one phantom figure
  Remains on the slope, as when that night
  Saw us alight.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 31-35

  I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
  I look back at it amid the rain
  For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
  And I shall traverse old love's domain
  Never again.

  

  

  

  

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“At Castle Boterel” Symbols

• 

  The Road

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“At Castle Boterel” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Enjambment

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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“At Castle Boterel” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Castle Boterel
• Junction
• Bedrenches
• Waggonette
• Byway
• Benighted
• Chaise
• Alighted
• Be balked of
• Rude reason
• Foot-swift, foot-sore
• Primaeval
• First and last
• Transitory
• Colour and cast
• Time's unflinching rigour
• In mindless rote
• Ruled from sight
• Traverse
• Domain

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “At Castle Boterel”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“At Castle Boterel” Speaker

“At Castle Boterel” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “At Castle Boterel”

More “At Castle Boterel” Resources

• External Resources

  • A Biography of Thomas Hardy — Read more about the poet's life and career in this Poetry Foundation article. 

  • The Thomas Hardy Society — Browse the website of the Thomas Hardy Society, a resource for understanding and appreciating one of England's most renowned writers.

  • Hardy on the BBC — Watch the documentary "Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy."

  • An Introduction to the Victorian Era — Learn about the historical period in which Hardy wrote.  

  • A "Diary" on Hardy and Gifford — An essay outlining Thomas Hardy and Emma Gifford's complicated marriage and the poems it inspired.  

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Thomas Hardy

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  • The Darkling Thrush

  • The Man He Killed

  • The Oxen

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  • Where the Picnic Was