A Spellbound Palace
Thomas Hardy
1840 to 1928
Track 1
Reconstruct the poem by dragging each line into its correct position. Your goal is to reassemble the original poem as accurately as possible. As you move the lines, you'll see whether your arrangement is correct, helping you explore the poem's flow and meaning. Take your time, enjoy the process, and discover how the poet's words come together to create something truly beautiful.
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In passive lapse that seems to ignore the yon world's clamorous clutch,
(Hampton Court)
Sheer in the sun they pass; and thereupon all is still,
Some tentative strains, to be enlarged by May or June:
The stirless depths of the yews
Where the now-visioned fountain its attenuate crystal sheds
Are vague with misty blues:
On this kindly yellow day of mild low-travelling winter sun
Two or three early sanguine finches tune
When an inner court outspreads
Comes now and then a word,
And lays an insistent numbness on the place, like a cold hand's touch.
Save the mindless fountain tinkling on with thin enfeebled will.
And there swaggers the Shade of a straddling King, plumed, sworded, with sensual face,
As 'twere History's own asile,
And lo, too, that of his Minister, at a bold self-centred pace:
From a thrush or blackbird
And the wind-gnawed walls of ancient brick are fired vermilion.
While an enfeebled fountain somewhere within is heard.
Then draw beneath the pile,
Across the spacious pathways stretching spires of shadow run,
Our footsteps wait awhile,