The Shadow on the Stone

“The Shadow on the Stone” is one of many poems Thomas Hardy wrote in response to the death of his first wife, Emma, on November 27, 1912. He began writing the poem in 1913, but he didn’t finish it until 1916, indicating a continuing struggle to reconcile himself to her death. The work was first published in 1917 in Moments of Vision, a collection of Hardy’s poems that includes other works expressing his feelings about her. The setting of “The Shadow on the Stone” is Max Gate, the country home Hardy built for Emma in 1885 at Dorchester, a market town in southwestern England constructed upon Roman ruins.