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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


DRAWING DETAILS IN AN OLD CHURCH by THOMAS HARDY

Poet Analysis

First Line: I HEAR THE BELL-ROPE SAWING
Last Line: BUT NOT INQUIRE.

I HEAR the bell-rope sawing,
And the oil-less axle grind,
As I sit alone here drawing
What some Gothic brain designed;
And I catch the toll that follows
From the lagging bell,
Ere it spreads to hills and hollows
Where people dwell.

I ask not whom it tolls for,
Incurious who he be;
So, some morrow, when those knolls for
One unguessed, sound out for me,
A stranger, loitering under
In nave or choir,
May think, too, "Whose, I wonder?"
But not inquire.



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