Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?
Thomas Hardy's poem Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave is a humorous and mildly cynical reminder that, once we are dead and buriied, life goes on. It invites comparison to E. A. Robinson's Is My Team Ploughing.
There is little that calls for explanation once the reader understands that the questioning voice is that of a woman who has shuffled off her mortal coil. In the first stanza she asks if it is her male loved one who is doing the digging with the intention of planting rue. We are reminded that the plant rue is extremely bitter and thus has lent itself to the abstract meaning of regret. LIn Act V of Hamlet mad Ophelia, arms laden with herbs and flowers, says: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays:
O you must wear your rue with a difference . . .
E. A. Robinson wrote the poem With Rue My Heart Is Laden, an expression of sorrow
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfood lad.
Returning to Hardy, the answer to her question is negative. Her loved one has gone off to marry a weallthy woman. He justifies his action saying, "it cannot hurt her now . . ./ That I should not be true."
The dead woman's second question asks if it is her "nearest dearest kin" doing the digging. Again the answer is no. Her kinfolk feel that planting flowers on her grave is a waste of time and energy since it will not bring back her back from death.
Question three asks if it is her enemy that is turning up the clods. No, her female enemy buried her hatred when she head the questioner's death and cares not where she is entombed.
The dead speaker gives up guessing in stanza four and asks the identity of the digger. She learns that it is her dog who hopes he has not disturbed her. The woman expresses her happiness that "one true heart was left behind" and praises her dog's faithfulness. In the concuding stanza, the dog apologizes. The animal was merely burying a bone against future hunger, having
There is little that calls for explanation once the reader understands that the questioning voice is that of a woman who has shuffled off her mortal coil. In the first stanza she asks if it is her male loved one who is doing the digging with the intention of planting rue. We are reminded that the plant rue is extremely bitter and thus has lent itself to the abstract meaning of regret. LIn Act V of Hamlet mad Ophelia, arms laden with herbs and flowers, says: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays:
O you must wear your rue with a difference . . .
E. A. Robinson wrote the poem With Rue My Heart Is Laden, an expression of sorrow
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfood lad.
Returning to Hardy, the answer to her question is negative. Her loved one has gone off to marry a weallthy woman. He justifies his action saying, "it cannot hurt her now . . ./ That I should not be true."
The dead woman's second question asks if it is her "nearest dearest kin" doing the digging. Again the answer is no. Her kinfolk feel that planting flowers on her grave is a waste of time and energy since it will not bring back her back from death.
Question three asks if it is her enemy that is turning up the clods. No, her female enemy buried her hatred when she head the questioner's death and cares not where she is entombed.
The dead speaker gives up guessing in stanza four and asks the identity of the digger. She learns that it is her dog who hopes he has not disturbed her. The woman expresses her happiness that "one true heart was left behind" and praises her dog's faithfulness. In the concuding stanza, the dog apologizes. The animal was merely burying a bone against future hunger, having