The sadness of so many girls mistreated during the nineteenth century - in town they are for sale and in the country for the taking - I get so depressed reading and knowing there is nothing we can do now or then to change what is done in secret - my outrage over what is happening today to the family and helpers of the 9 year old in Brazil is such a bitter pill I am stunned as if poisoned.
This may help change the subject -
Life Laughs Onward
by Thomas Hardy
Rambling I looked for an old abode
Where, years back, one had lived I knew;
Its site a dwelling duly showed,
But it was new.
I went where, not so long ago,
The sod had riven two breasts asunder;
Daisies throve gaily there, as though
No grave were under.
I walked along a terrace where
Loud children gambolled in the sun;
The figure that had once sat there
Was missed by none.
Life laughed and moved on unsubdued,
I saw that Old succumbed to Young:
'Twas well. My too regretful mood
Died on my tongue.
No explanation as to who are the two breasts riven assunder - are they friends, neighbors, family members - No hint - only folks from his past - or...
Trying to dope this out I turned to my book on symbolism and looked at the number Two - one of the many points of departure it suggests is to consider man body and soul - and so in his old abode in a place where grass is growing [sod] where the speaker in this poem had his soul or spirit - or maybe his heart - maybe his concept of love since he says breasts - riven [split with force or violence, to devide into pieces] from his body.
Backing up abode/house a world center, the sheltering aspect of the Great Mother, protection, the universal, our decent into darkness before rebirth and regeneration.
Sod is soil with grass - the soil symbolizes mother earth, the matrix - grass symbolizes useful submission, ones native land - OK to me this one is not deep it is probably only suggesting the natural place of the beginning of his time as a primordial child. This could be an inward ramble looking back, after a regeneration or a rebirth, to the person the speaker had been.
Breasts symbolize love, motherhood, nourishment, the great mother
Gravethe womb of the earth and the Earth Mother, the body imprisoning the soul, both death dealing and sheltering, dying to the world.
I am thinking grave is symbolic in the poem of where he was separated from himself - his faith in human kindness maybe - or maybe just the fact of growing up you are riven from childish things and childish comforts and childish thinking.
The Daisy symbolizes innocence and purity, emblem of the nymph Belides who caught the eye of Vertumnus, the god of orchards. This happened when she was dancing with other nymphs at the edge of a forest. Belides didn't want to be the center of attention, so morphed into the flower bellis. This is the daisy's botanical name.
But why a regretful mood - sad, I could understand but regretful
Tongue is powerful, both preaching and as a serpent - In Greek art, the tongue is a divine attribute, then later, a fearful device of the Gorgon. A two sided symbol finishing the poem with another version of two.
I still do not get regretful - maybe regretful not personally but more like, it is a regretful thing that we do in order to age. OK any ideas - I maybe kicking this can too hard.
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