John Donne A Church Romance

This poem is about a church band that plays better than usual when they

see this woman, and the man playing the viol really takes a shine to her so

he belows a strong note at her.

Thomas Hardy s father and grand father used to play in a church band

and this had a great impact on Hardy s poetry writing.

There are forteen lines in this poem, so therefore it is called a sonnet.

Each line consists of ten syllables, and a simple rhythm is used, which is

unstressed then stressed. A sonnet is a poem that is based around a form

of love. The first eight lines talk about a romance in the process and the

last six lines talk that romance many years later. It suggests that when

people are younger romance is a common act. There was romance because

they were more physically attractive, rather than now because they are

older, they are less physically attractive.

The rhyme scheme of the poem is fairly straightforward, it is a,b,b,a.

Except for the last verse of the poem which goes a,b,b,a,c,c. Thomas

Hardy likes to use simple rhyme in most of his poems, for example,

Swept the west gallery, and caught its row

Of music-men with viol, book, and bow

This poem contains a few images, an image can produced of the five

senses. So an image will be of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell. This

image is of sight.

She turned in the high pew, until her sight

Swept the west gallery, and caught its row

This sight image shows that her beauty is noticed by the church band

when she turns around. Her beauty has woken up the west gallery and

made them alive. This next image is of sound.

A message from his string to her below

In this part of the poem the man playing the viol really likes the woman

with good looks and plays a special note just for her. Once again she is

making the church alive because he is playing music just for her.

Against the sinking sad tower-window light

The image here is a brilliant picture of light in the church. It says that

the light from this window is dull, and probably is early morning light, but

the church band makes this light more powerful by the sound of their

instruments. There are no images of taste in this poem, and this is typical

of a Hardy poem. Because Hardy had a better ear for sound images more

than anything else. But sight images come in every poem, otherwise poems

wouldn t work.