Hardy, Thomas. "During Wind and Rain".

Summary

- general description of an unspecific family's progress from life to death

- the family sings songs, keeps their garden, builds a garden seat, changes to a new house, etc.

- spend their lives by struggling against the nature (e.g. removing moss from the garden paths) and building material comfort only to end up in the grave ("Down their carved names the raindrop plows")

Analysis

- ballad-like, or informally elegiac

- melodic: alliteration, refrain, interjections (rhymed with full-meaning words)

- simple, uncomplicated images of family life versus elaborate symbolic images of the triumphing nature

- impersonal (the family members described by pronouns only): suggests the universality of human condition