Poetry / "Gone, Gone Again" by Edward Thomas [3]

At first glance Edward Thomas' poem, "Gone, Gone Again," seems to be about an old man reminiscing about his life and past experiences. It is even possible that the old man is looking back on his life with burdensome feelings of regret and sorrow. What could possibly have happened in this man's life to cause so much sorrow and despair ?

The first few paragraphs of this poem describe the loss of time; Thomas gives the sense that a significant portion of time has gone by, and that it has passed by quickly. The repetition of the words "gone" and "again" help illustrate the narrator's feeling of how time has just slipped by. Also, the summer months of May, June, July, and August only occur once every year, so by pairing these months with the phrase "gone, gone again" Thomas emphasizes that a whole year has come and gone more than once. This organization helps the reader to understand that the narrator is looking back over a period of several years, maybe even several decades. It is typical to think of time moving quickly when one looks back from the present; consider the fact that on New Year's Eve we often perceive the year as having "flown by," but in April the year seems like it will never end, that it is proceeding at a snail's pace. Also, children often perceive time as passing much more slowly than adults do. These clues reveal that the narrator of the poem is an elderly person; he is looking back on his life that seems like it went by very quickly and the tone of the poem reveals that he has little to look forward to in the future like most young people do. Further, the second paragraph conveys that the years that have passed were unimportant because the old man describes them as "not memorable." The beginning of this poem foreshadows the loneliness, apathy, and sadness seen in the rest of the poem as the the old man describes the water flowing by the empty piers. One can already see in the first few paragraphs that part of the reason the narrator is sorrowful is because his life has flown by with little to show for it, and he has little hope for the future because of his advanced age.

In the next few paragraphs, the old man's sadness is more obvious than at the beginning of the poem. The old man talks about how the Blenheim oranges are ripe at this time of year and falling from the trees. Blenheim oranges are actually a popular type of apple that are preferred for cooking as well as eating. Blenheim oranges are also very pretty; they are usually bright green with streaks of red-orange on the peel (Keepers Nursery 1). By the time the apples are ripe enough to fall from the trees, they have gained their full flavor and are optimal for eating. However, the old man says that: "The Blenheim oranges / Fall grubby from the trees..." There is something about this location or this type of tree that reminds the old man about events from his past; these events obviously greatly sadden the old man because he perceives that the usually beautiful apples are now only "grubby." The old man says:

The Blenheim oranges
Fall grubby from the trees
As when I was young
And when the lost one was here
And when the war began
To turn the young men to dung.

Clearly, the old man is sad because the lost one is no longer with him; perhaps the Blenheim orange tree reminds the old man of the happier times he spent with "the lost one." After reading these lines, one cannot help but wonder who is the lost one? It is possible that "the lost one" was a friend from the old man's youth that was killed in the war. Perhaps the old man and his friend joined the war together, but only the old man returned alive while his friend was one of the "young men [turned] to dung." With the loss of his friend in the context of the war, perhaps the Blenheim oranges falling may remind the old man of gunfire or of soldiers falling, thus explaining why he feels that they are "grubby." Maybe something similar to the size of apples was what killed his friend, so the falling apples recall one of the saddest events in the old man's life. Regardless of the old man's associations with the Blenheim oranges, one can see that the heaviness he carries with him now is largely from his experiences in the war and the loss of his friend(s ).

The remainder of the poem describes an old, abandoned house and the similarities the old man feels to such a house. The house is in disrepair; it is "dark and untenanted / With grass growing instead / Of the footsteps of life." The house is not only empty, but nobody wants it anymore and it has become rundown. Conceivably, the old man's friends are all "gone, gone again" like the tenants of the old house. The loss of his friends (by the war or otherwise) has left the old man rundown emotionally like the house is rundown physically. The next lines of the poem say: "In its beds have lain / Youth, love, age, and pain." The past tense of these lines illustrates the fact that this was how the house used to be, but it isn't like that anymore. Similarly, the old man is a remnant of what he once was, but has since given up on himself and stopped caring about anything. His spirit has been broken by the war and all of his friends are gone, leaving him lonely and apathetic. Perhaps he may have felt confident and joyful before all this time passed, but now he feels unimportant and ignored, just like the house.

The old man even admits the similarities he feels to this scrap of a house when he says "I am something like that" in the seventh and eight paragraphs. In fact, the seventh paragraph is the only part of the whole poem where a glimmer of hope is seen in the old man's attitude. The old man says that, yes, he is similar to this old house, "Only [he is] not dead, / Still breathing and interested / In the house that is not dark." It could be that in this case, the old man is admitting to himself that his deceased friends are more like the house than he is; the friends are all used up like the house, but the old man is not dead yet and still has a desire to be happy. However, maybe the old man feels that his friends are lucky to be dead because they have no longing to be young and carefree again like he wishes to be.

It seems as though the old man realizes the ambiguity of what he said in the seventh paragraph, because in the final paragraph he realizes that it was probably silly for him to entertain such "unrealistic" thoughts. The old man again admits that he is like the windowless house with nothing left to reflect the joys of the world. The old man realizes that man can no longer do him any harm; there is no joy left in life because all of his friends are dead and he is all alone. He has reached the depths of despair. At the conclusion of this poem, one may wonder what the significance is of the broken windows. If the house were just old and rundown, but still had the windows in tact, would the old man end his thoughts on a positive note? Would the windows signify that there was, in fact, hope for the old man's life? Truthfully, windows in a home do not offer very much physical protection, but perhaps the presence of windows in this old house would have helped the man begin to recover from the emotional damage he has experienced so far.