66. On The Departure Platform - A Friend to Gill

In this episode, Gill Gregory talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to her – 'On the Departure Platform' by Thomas Hardy.

Gill joined The Poetry Exchange at the National Centre for Writing in Norwich. We are hugely grateful to the National Centre for Writing for hosting us so warmly, and to all the readers who visited us there.

Andrea is in conversation with The Poetry Exchange hosts, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer.

The 'gift' reading of 'On the Departure Platform' is by Michael Shaeffer.

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On the Departure Platform

by Thomas Hardy

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through

She left me, and moment by moment got

Smaller and smaller, until to my view

               She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff

That down the diminishing platform bore

Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough

              To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight’s fitful glowers,

Behind dark groups from far and near,

Whose interests were apart from ours,

                She would disappear,

Then show again, till I ceased to see

That flexible form, that nebulous white;

And she who was more than my life to me

                Had vanished quite.

We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,

And in season she will appear again—

Perhaps in the same soft white array—

                But never as then !

—‘And why, young man, must eternally fly

A joy you’ll repeat, if you love her well ?’

—O friend, nought happens twice thus ; why,

                I cannot tell!

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