Thomas Hardy’s “During Wind and Rain” offers four stanzas that each depict a scene of domestic contentment, marked by music, landscaping, shared meals, and relocation to ⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s poem “A Broken Appointment” addresses the acute disappointment and quiet despair of a speaker who has been stood up by someone beloved. Though the title po⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?” unfolds as a conversation from beyond the grave, where the deceased narrator hears someone disturbing her burial plot an⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Oxen” presents a nostalgic reflection on the power of childhood faith. It focuses on the old folk legend that at midnight on Christmas Eve, farm ⋯ Read the full article

In “The Man He Killed,” Thomas Hardy illustrates the paradox of war through a simple and direct monologue. The speaker recalls an enemy soldier he killed in battle, musin⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s “Drummer Hodge” reflects on the fate of a young English drummer who dies far from home during the Boer War. The poem contrasts his humble, rural background⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s “Channel Firing” presents a powerful scene in which the dead are startled awake by naval gunfire off the English coast, mistaking the cacophony for Judgmen⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s “The Ruined Maid” is a satirical dialogue between two young women who encounter each other in town after one has left her rural life behind. The poem is wr⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s “Neutral Tones” uses a bleak winter setting to capture the emotional distance between two people whose love has faded. Set beside a colorless pond on a win⋯ Read the full article

Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush,” written at the turn of the twentieth century, paints a somber winter landscape that mirrors the poet’s sense of existential unease. ⋯ Read the full article

In Robert Browning’s “Prospice,” the speaker defiantly confronts the reality of death, viewing it not as an end to be feared but as a final test of courage and fortitude.⋯ Read the full article

Robert Browning’s “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” is a haunting, dreamlike narrative poem that portrays a lone knight’s struggle to reach a mysterious Dark Tower. ⋯ Read the full article

In Book 3 of *The Ring and the Book*, Robert Browning offers the perspective of “Other Half-Rome.” This section serves as a counterweight to Book 2’s “Half-Rome,” which a⋯ Read the full article

In Book 1 of his monumental poem “The Ring and the Book,” Robert Browning sets the stage for a sprawling examination of truth, perception, and human motive. Inspired by a⋯ Read the full article

In “Abt Vogler,” Robert Browning places us in the mind of an organist-composer who has just finished an exalted improvisation on his instrument. The poem explores how mus⋯ Read the full article