Domicilium
Thomas Hardy
1840 to 1928
Drag the words to the correct places to complete the poem. To reset the game, click on the "Reset Game" button located below the poem. This will clear all the words you've placed in the blanks, returning them to the word bank and resetting the poem to its original state with empty blanks.
It faces west, and round the back and sides
______ beeches, bending, hang a veil of boughs,
And sweep ______ the roof. Wild honeysucks
Climb on the walls, and ______ to sprout a wish
(If we may fancy wish ______ trees and plants)
To overtop the apple trees hard-by.
______ roses, lilacs, variegated box
Are there in plenty, and ______ hardy flowers
As flourish best untrained. Adjoining these
Are ______ and esculents; and farther still
A field; then cottages ______ trees, and last
The distant hills and sky.
Behind, ______ scene is wilder. Heath and furze
Are everything that ______ to grow and thrive
Upon the uneven ground. A ______ thorn
Stands here and there, indeed; and from a ______
An oak uprises, Springing from a seed
Dropped by ______ bird a hundred years ago.
In days bygone—
______ gone—my father's mother, who is now
Blest with the blest, would take me out to walk.
At such a ______ I once inquired of her
How looked the spot ______ first she settled here.
The answer I remember. 'Fifty ______
Have passed since then, my child, and change has ______
The face of all things. Yonder garden-plots
And orchards ______ uncultivated slopes
O'ergrown with bramble bushes, furze and thorn:
______ road a narrow path shut in by ferns,
Which, ______ trees, obscured the passers-by.
Our house stood quite alone, ______ those tall firs
And beeches were not planted. Snakes ______ efts
Swarmed in the summer days, and nightly bats
______ fly about our bedrooms. Heathcroppers
Lived on the hills, ______ were our only friends;
So wild it was when ______ first settled here.'