The Freedom of the Borough

Abstract

In March, being at Ventnor, Hardy visited Swinburne’s grave at Bonchurch, and composed the poem entitled ‘A Singer Asleep’. It is remembered by a friend who accompanied him on this expedition how that windy March day had a poetry of its own, how primroses clustered in the hedges, and noisy rooks wheeled in the air over the little churchyard. Hardy gathered a spray of ivy and laid it on the grave of that brother-poet of whom he never spoke save in words of admiration and affection.