Very nice poem. Good selection. These days, with supermarkets, many of us don't know how the things we eat and drink reach us the way they are. Didn't know these blackberries begin to ferment when the are plucked. Must be like the marulas here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5E5TjkDvU0

:-)
Sudarshan

I like poems about small things. Heaney's poem does exactly what poetry is supposed to do, evoke strong visual images and feelings about those images. His use of language is wonderful to the ear: milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots. Rat-grey fungus.

the african poems in other literatures are better, in my opinion, anyway. Or anyguay !

Nice poem. I is clearly a sorrowful statement as for how his wife was at some concrete moment. Lfe is beautiful but ephimeral. It is spotted that the word "And"kepts repeating at the beginning of several verses throughout the stanza, as some kind of anaphore. It is as though Hardy highlights how beauty and life are little by little fadig away ...

" The poem is typically an autobiographical one. Its about Hardy's first wife Emma Gifford who died due to a bout of insanity.
The poem is to be dealt with under the banner of Hardy's personal works.The poem doesnt stand on its own.
The first three stanzas talk about Hardy visualizing his wife happy at the piano, he has no pain only pleasure at this scene.
Later the phantom appears and the entire scene shifts.
The phantom is an apparition , a premonition of something ominous coming. This is not seen by both of them. The phantom is
also a reference to the Madness that Emma was suffering from. This completely shattered their love life leaving them sad at the end."

This is in a collection of his personal works.
I think you can add more if you go into the autobiographical element of the poem.

Have you seen the musical Broadway play, Phantom of the Opera? This sounds similar to that. There is the feeling of darkness, betrayal, guilt and tragedy. Perhaps a deeper understanding of Hardy's personal life will explain the metaphors used.

Sudarshan

I an not an expert in interpreting poems. This one is absract and reads nice. I have read quite a few books by Thomas Hardy. Great books. Did not know he writes poems as well.