1.7 Applying Reader Response Criticism
SpringBoard
“Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?”
By Thomas Hardy
“The Man He Killed”
By Thomas Hardy
“Ah, are you digging on my grave,
My loved one? -- planting rue?”
--“No: yesterday he went to wed
One of the brightest wealth has bred.
5 “It cannot hurt her now, he said,
That I should not be true.’”
Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have set us down to wet
4 Right many a nipperkin!
“Then who is digging on my grave,
My nearest dearest kin?”
--“Ah, no: they sit and think, ‘What use!
10 What good will planting flowers produce?
No tendance of her mound can loose
Her spirit from Death’s gin.’”
“But someone digs upon my grave?
My enemy? – prodding sly?”
15 -- “Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate
That shuts on all flesh soon or late,
She thought you no more worth her hate,
And cares not where you lie.”
"Then, who is digging on my grave?
20
Say -- since I have not guessed!"
-- "O it is I, my mistress dear,
Your little dog , who still lives near,
And much I hope my movements here
Have not disturbed your rest?"
"Ah yes! You dig upon my grave...
Why flashed it not to me
That one true heart was left behind!
What feeling do we ever find
To equal among human kind
30
A dog's fidelity!"
"Mistress, I dug upon your grave
To bury a bone, in case
I should be hungry near this spot
When passing on my daily trot.
35
I am sorry, but I quite forgot
It was your resting place."
But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
8 And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because-Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
12 That's clear enough; although
He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like--just as I-Was out of work--had sold his traps-16 No other reason why.
Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat, if met where any bar is,
20 Or help to half a crown.
1.7 Applying Reader Response Criticism
SpringBoard
“When I was One-and-Twenty”
A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
4
WHEN I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.’
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
“When You Are Old”
By William Butler Yeats 1865–1939
5
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
10
‘The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.’
And I am two-and-twenty,
15
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
8
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
12