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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


IN A FORMER RESORT AFTER MANY YEARSS by THOMAS HARDY

Poet Analysis

First Line: DO I KNOW THESE, SLACK-SHAPED AND WAN
Last Line: FROM UNDERGROUND IN CURIOUS CALLS?

DO I know these, slack-shaped and wan,
Whose substance, one time fresh and furrowless,
Is now a rag drawn over a skeleton,
As in El Greco's canvases? --
Whose cheeks have slipped down, lips become indrawn,
And statures shrunk to dwarfishness?

Do they know me, whose former mind
Was like an open plain where no foot falls,
But now is as a gallery portrait-lined,
And scored with necrologic scrawls,
Where feeble voices rise, once full-defined,
From underground in curious calls?



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