Poetry · Chapter
House and Man explained
The speaker recalls a man and his isolated house, which stands alone in the forest.
What happens
The speaker recalls a man and his isolated house, which stands alone in the forest. The man's presence is ghost-like and weary, and the memory is triggered by the sight of a magpie veering in doubt.
Themes in this chapter
Place and Belonging
The house is isolated in the forest, and the man's relationship with it is one of lonely belonging.
Memory and Time
The speaker recalls the man and house from the past, triggered by a present sight.
Characters to notice
- Unknown
The speaker who remembers the man and his house, observing from the gate.
- Old Jack Noman
The man living in the lonely house, described as ghost-like and weary.
Key passages
“One hour: as dim he and his house now look As a reflection in a rippling brook, While I remember him; but first, his house.”
The man and his house appear as faded as a reflection in a disturbed stream, as the speaker recalls them.
Opens the poem with a memory of the man and his dwelling.
“He seemed to hang rather than stand there, half Ghost-like, half like a beggar’s rag, clean wrung And useless on the brier where it has hung Long years a-washing by sun and wind and rain.”
He appeared to be suspended, part spectral, part like a tattered cloth left to weather on a thorn bush.
Describes the man's worn and ghostly appearance.