Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Why are there so many made-up compound words, like "Delicate-filmed" (3) and "dewfall-hawk (6) and "wind-warped" (7)?
- How might this poem have been influenced by the greater context of World War I?
- This poem relies on a lot of natural images, like the "hedgehog" (10) and the "glad green leaves" (2), so we usually call it a nature poem. Is it possible to read parts of it as supernatural?
- Is the tone of the imagined dialogue of the speaker's neighbors different from the tone of the rest of the poem? How so? Why do you think that is?
- How does the speaker wish to be remembered? How would you want to be remembered, if you were writing your own "Afterwards"?