‘Beeny Cliff’ explores the often dissatisfying result of comparing a fair-weather memory with its present reality. In the poem, the speaker remembers a sunny day spent with a woman they evidently loved (mirroring Hardy’s personal experiences) and struggles to reconcile that joyously idealistic image with the day’s current state. Through both extensive imagery and illustrative diction, Hardy recreates two impactful scenes that highlight the uncrossable expanse that exists between the pined-for past and the disenchanted present.
Beeny Cliff Thomas HardyO the opal* and the sapphire* of that wandering western sea,And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free -The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far awayIn a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.- Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,The woman now is – elsewhere - whom the ambling pony bore,And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.
Summary
‘Beeny Cliff’ by Thomas Hardy is a poem that uses a memory of a specific location to reveal the ways heartbreak and loss can deeply affect us.
‘Beeny Cliff’ opens in medias res on a memory recollected by the speaker. The scene takes place on the shores of a hamlet known as Beeny in Cornwall (the real-life home of Hardy’s first wife, Emma). It’s here the speaker travels back to in order to grasp at a now lost love and happiness they once possessed for life, the source of which is evidently the woman they’re with. In a lot of ways, the poem is autobiographical. It was written after the death of Emma about a date they once shared to the exact setting described in the poem. As a result, the poem juxtaposes the radiant warmth of the memory with the cold and dull reality of the present in order to emphasize the sheer weight of heartbreak endured by the speaker (and Hardy).
Structure and Form
‘Beeny Cliff’ is composed of five triplets with a rhyme scheme, ‘AAA BBB CCC DDD EEE.’ Its verses contain examples of end-stopped lines and enjambment. The structure of the rhyming triplets (as opposed to couplets or quatrains) provokes a sense of fragmented incompletion. The speaker’s grief and depression erode even the lyrical cadence found in the poem until it’s a shadow of its former self (much like the memory of Beeny Cliff).
Literary Devices
For reference, when brackets are used after a quote, it is a referral to the line number that quote came from.
‘Beeny Cliff’ contains an abundance of literary devices, each helping to shape the shifting moods of the poem. Symbolism is present: the “chasmal beauty” (10) of Beeny Cliff represents the large separation between the past and present. While the description of the “wild weird western shore” (13) signifies the emotionally tangible ways the location has become altered to the speaker.
Hardy also uses descriptive imagery that articulates the joy and beauty of the memory while juxtaposing it alongside the empty bleakness of the present. Visual imagery paints a colorful scene: the water looks bejeweled as “opal and sapphire” (1); “in a nether sky” (5) gives the water a mystical size; “irised rain” (7) lends the water falling from the sky a similar radiance as the ocean; while the arrival of the sun after a short rain is described raptly as having “burst out again, and purples prinked the main” (9). There’s also kinesthetic imagery in the form of the “woman riding high above with bright hair” (2).
Hardy also employs quite a few sound devices under the category of alliteration. The poem is rife with them, and speaking it aloud is the best way to catch their abundance. There are a lot of examples of consonance: “wandering western” (1); “flapping free” (2); “loyally loved” (3); “engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say” (5); “beauty bulks old Beeny” (10). As well as assonance: “pale mews plained” (4). You’ll also notice that many of these overlap within various lines and stanzas, creating a tangle of euphonious sounds that channel the speaker’s changing tone from light and brisk to heavy and rotund.
Detailed Analysis
Stanza One
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free–
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.
In the first stanza of ‘Beeny Cliff,’ the speaker introduces a few important motifs found within the poem. The first is the scenery, with the speaker focusing in particular on the ocean. Calling it “opal” and “sapphire” (1), the diction invokes the colorfully shimmering surfaces of gems to illustrate the shifting beauty of the water. Then there’s the alliterative phrase “wandering western sea” (1) that completes the image with its breathless and euphonious cadence.
The second motif is the “woman riding high above” (2) — a person dear to the speaker in the way Emma was to Hardy, as evidenced by the final line in the triplet. Their vivaciousness is emphasized in this first stanza both in the kinesthetic imagery of their movement and that of their “bright hair flapping free” (2).
Stanza Two
The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.
The speaker describes more of the scenery at Beeny Cliff, where “pale mews” (i.e., seagulls) fly below them in the wind, and the waves crash “far away / In a nether sky” (4-5). That last piece of imagery is one of the more stunning found in the poem, underscoring both the majestic height of the cliff and the largesse of the ocean.
Within this severe and awe-inspiring setting, there’s also laughter and sunlight, which Hardy uses to underscore the joy that once existed in this particular memory. Alliteration in the form of consonance is also present: “pale mews plained” (4); “engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say” (5); “laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned” (6).
Stanza Three
A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.
The third triplet of ‘Beeny Cliff’ sees a shift in the scenery. A cloud suddenly appears, which the speaker personifies as cloaking them in its whisps of moisture. The description of the rain as “irised” echoes the bejeweled adjectives used in the first stanza but now associates them with eyes in particular — possibly of the remembered woman.
As the gloom passes, the speaker describes the waters of the Atlantic in an act of personification that dyes its surface in a “dull misfeatured stain” (8). But before such a dreary image can take hold, light appears once more as the “sun burst out again,” and color too: “purples prinked the main,” the speaker says, another alliterative phrase that conveys the way this memory is saturated by an iridescent vibrancy.
Stanza Four
—Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?
The hyphen that begins the fourth stanza of ‘Beeny Cliff’ cues the reader to another shift, as we are now in the present. The word “still” falls heavily after as the speaker describes what “old Beeny” looks like today using a unique but apt coinage by Hardy, labeling it a “chasmal beauty” that “bulks” towards the sky (10). The alliteration found within this opening line — as much as the imposing images derived from its ambiguously defined but potently felt diction — assert that the cliffs are still quite the majestic sight even years later.
That large passage of time (which the poem’s subtitle of “March 1870 – March 1913” makes clear is over four decades) and the changes therein become the focus of the poem now. In the present, the speaker laments in the form of a question about an inability to return to recreate the memory they just shared. While it’s left ambiguous in the poem as to the fate of the woman, unfortunately for Hardy, the reason is plainly the passing of Emma some years prior.
Stanza Five
What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is-elsewhere-whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.
In the final stanza of ‘Beeny Cliff,’ the speaker brings the poem full circle back to its beginning. A collision of both memory and reality that’s heralded by the “wild weird western shore” (13) — an alteration of the previously “wandering western sea” (1). Here the “chasmal beauty looms,” an impactful image that echoes the description of the cliff in the last stanza but also symbolizes the impassable gulf between the past and present.
The speaker conjures up one final time the image of the woman — who is now ambiguously “elsewhere” (14) — in a place where she no longer “knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore” (15). Indicating the permanence of her separation not just from the speaker but from the physical world they shared in the memory.
FAQs
The poem addresses the way memory can give vibrancy to a location (or to one’s life) while also acknowledging the absence of a person who can mar it. The speaker returning to Beeny Cliff decades later, finds a setting disenchanted because the woman he loved is no longer with him. Yet the memory persists, creating a tension between the heavy nostalgia and melancholy that ebb within the poem that is irreconcilable.
The poem is autobiographical: Hardy’s first wife died not long before this poem was written. Both his letters and that of Emma corroborate they enjoyed a date to Beeny Cliff as well, unsurprising since she’d lived not very far away from the town of Beeny. That was in March of 1870, with Hardy returning to the spot decades later in 1913, after her death.
Hardy coined the term “chasmal” in order to transform the word “chasm” into an adjective. It appears twice in the poem and is emblematic of both the poem’s theme: symbolizing the bittersweet and immense distance that exists between the speaker’s life without the woman and their memory of her. This emphasizes rather paradoxically both the emptiness of Beeny Cliff since her passing and the location’s lasting beauty — like the memory of the woman, it persists even as time goes by.
Similar Poems
Here are a few more Thomas Hardy poems to enjoy:
- ‘At Castle Boterel’ – is another poem about grieving via a sweet memory.
- ‘Midnight on the Great Western’ – is a poem that focuses on a single location as an extended metaphor.
- ‘I Said To Love’ – is another poem about the loss of Hardy’s first wife, Emma.
