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2 I Look Into My Glass

The poem reflects on the speaker looking at his aging appearance in the mirror and wishing that his heart had aged as much as his body. He laments that while his skin shows signs of aging, his heart still feels passionately. The speaker wishes he could wait for death alone and undistressed by others who have grown cold towards him in his old age. However, time has stolen his youthfulness while letting his strong emotions remain, so his fragile body is still shaken by the throbbings of his heart's passions.

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Lily Khaw
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100% found this document useful (1 vote)
123 views2 pages

2 I Look Into My Glass

The poem reflects on the speaker looking at his aging appearance in the mirror and wishing that his heart had aged as much as his body. He laments that while his skin shows signs of aging, his heart still feels passionately. The speaker wishes he could wait for death alone and undistressed by others who have grown cold towards him in his old age. However, time has stolen his youthfulness while letting his strong emotions remain, so his fragile body is still shaken by the throbbings of his heart's passions.

Uploaded by

Lily Khaw
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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2.

I Look into my Glass

S1
I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!

S2
For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

S3
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
wasting: shrivelled, withered
Would God it came to pass: I wish it
would happen
undistrest: without distress
wait my endless rest: wait for my death
equanimity: composure; serenity
grieve: intense sorrow
abide: continue without fading or being
lost
frame: body
eve: the evening of life, old age
Overview:
-
Hardy was estranged from his wife
-
poem is focused on himself my glass; my wasting skin; my heart; my endless rest
-
poem concerned with how appearance belies reality: how other people see him (his
elderly appearance) and how he really feels (passionately)
-
reects on cruel irony that his ageing body still harbours the strong feelings of a much
younger man
-
laments about human consciousness that resides in the frail body
Structure:
-
Pace is slow except for the nal two lines of passion
-
Line 3 always runs over to Line 4
-
Line 1,2 and 4 are iambic trimeters
-
Line 3 is iambic tetrameter

Tone:
-
Reective (looking at his reection in the mirror and painting in words an emotional self-portrait; viewing
his wasting skin in a glass (mirror)
S1
I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!
-
glass: mirror
-
wasting: losing youth and strength; former smoothness and tautness is gone
-
Words to do with age predominate: wasting; shrunk; thin; ageing; appearance is decaying (link to
hearts grown cold)
-
Contrast made between physical appearance wasting skin; and feelings heart
-
Would God: I wish to God that; burst out passionately; illustrates the intensity of his feelings
-
Line 3 run over into line 4: marks intensity of emotions
-
heart: referring to his emotions; ability/capacity to love, feel and hurt;
-
as thin: simile; contrasts to wasting skin; wishes that his heart had shrunk as thin as skin; still has
feelings (reference to throbbings of noontide); wishes that his feelings had decayed in the same way as
his body
S2
For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.
-
L2: expresses his distress and pain; depict himself as being a sufferer at others hands; wishes he were
undistrest; distressed by hearts grown cold to me; expresses this in the passive mood, putting himself
in the position of the sufferer;
-
undistrest: without mental suffering;
-
Line 3 run over into line 4: reects longed for equanimity, no punctuation to interrupt the rest; prolongs
idea of endless
-
Coldness of other peoples hearts is emphasised by the assonance of grown cold; making Hardy
lonely-the continued assonance showing the effect of this coldness upon him
-
grown cold: shows the distress he feels so acutely at the coldness of former friends and possibly lovers
who has denied him at his old age
-
wishes to wait alone for death without feeling hurt by others
S3
But Time, to make me grieve,
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.
-
throbbings of noontide: experiences this instead of equanimity
-
Time: personied; stressing its proactive part in Hardys bitter experiences in a sudden proliferation of
verbs (make me; steals; lets; shakes); given a weighty and ominous presence in the poem; blames
arbitrary process of time which have wasted his physical being while his heart retains the intense
feelings of his prime
-
Steals: freshness and youthfulness of his face and body
-
Abide: allows to remain; leaves ability to feel strong emotions and to be deeply hurt by the indifference
and coldness of other people towards him
-
fragile frame: insists on the physical age which belies his youth emotions; frame is reference to
his body
-
L3 runs over into L4; enjambement; speeding up the pace-emotions spill over
-
Assonance: steals; eve; ensures that we associate Hardys grieve with the robbery of Time steals
and his old age eve
-
Internal rhyme and assonance: make; shake; help us to link another source of Hardys pain; make
unconscious connections between the words and their meanings

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