# Over the Hills explained — Poetry > Chapter companion for Poetry by Edward Thomas. ## What happens The speaker reflects on a past journey over a horizon ridge into a new country, recalling the path, the harvest evening, and a kind inn full of strangers. A year later, while digging, the memory returns vividly, but the speaker realizes that recall is futile, comparing it to a brook that cannot flow backward up a waterfall. ## Themes in this chapter ### Memory and Time The poem centers on the persistent return of a past memory and the impossibility of truly revisiting it, likened to a brook that cannot flow backward. ### Place and Belonging The speaker's journey to a new country and the inn where all were kind yet strangers highlights a sense of displacement and longing for a lost place. ## Character check-ins ### Unknown The speaker who recalls the past journey and reflects on the impossibility of returning to it. ## Key lines > Often and often it came back again To mind, the day I passed the horizon ridge To a new country Repeatedly, the memory returned of the day I crossed the ridge into an unfamiliar land. _The speaker emphasizes the recurring nature of this memory._ > I did not know my loss Till one day twelve months later suddenly I leaned upon my spade and saw it all I was unaware of what I had lost until a year later, when I paused while digging and suddenly understood. _The realization of loss comes belatedly, during a mundane moment._ > Recall Was vain: no more could the restless brook Ever turn back and climb the waterfall To the lake that rests and stirs not in its nook Trying to remember was futile, just as a stream cannot reverse its course and ascend a waterfall back to its still source. _The speaker compares the impossibility of true recall to a natural impossibility._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_5_se/chapters/over-the-hills - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_5_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_5_se/chapters