The rhyme scheme in the third and final stanza—AABACCBC—is consistent throughout the poem, with the exception of line 7 in the second stanza which is unrhymed. The end rhymes in the poem are mostly perfect rhymes, such as “see”/“me”/“be” and “glade,”/“shade”/“fade” in this stanza. Sometimes the end rhymes are examples of approximate rhyme or off rhyme, such as “unvision” and “apparition” in this stanza and “shadows”/“shoulders” in the first stanza.

An apparition is a ghostly figure or something that appears supernaturally.

Hardy coins the word “unvision” to mean literally “unsee.” In the poem’s context, it also has a figurative meaning: to destroy the vision of Emma he imagined or experienced in the garden.

By refusing to look behind him, Hardy keeps alive the possibility that Emma is with him and spares himself the grief of discovering that she is not there.

Until this point in the poem, Hardy’s emotional state has only been implied. Here he expresses it as one of sadness and grief, suggesting his feelings of despair regarding Emma’s death.

Hardy now actively engages in his imaginary reunion with Emma, thinking she is standing behind him and speaking to her directly as he tries to understand how she could now appear in “this old track,” a reference to the path through the garden.

Even as Hardy is drawn deeper into imagining Emma’s presence, he acknowledges her having died. The alliteration of the “L” sound in “long,” “learned,” and “lack” unites the three words, suggesting that he has lived without her for some time and that living without her had been difficult, something he had to learn how to do.

The key word in this passage is “imagining.” From his memories of watching Emma work in the garden, Hardy see her shadow in the shadows on the stone cast by the nearby tree. His imagining that he sees Emma’s shadow provides further insight into his emotional state; he sees what he wants to see in the shadows.

In the context of this line, “hard by” means near or nearby.

With this line the focus of the poem changes from the stone to the shadows on the stone; the focus shifts simultaneously with the shadows shifting on it. The alliteration of the “S” sound emphasizes the dynamic in the line and in the poem. The repetition of the alliteration in the following lines (“some,” “swing,” “shaped,” “shade,” “shoulders”) unifies the stanza, leading to the final and most important alliterative word: “she.” “She” refers to Emma, the subject of Hardy’s meditation.

To brood means to dwell on a subject while in an anxious or gloomy state of mind. With the word “broods,” Hardy personifies the stone, ascribing to it his own depressed emotional state.

The poem begins with the description of an ancient stone in the garden at Max Gate. After moving into the house, Hardy discovered the large block of stone buried in the garden and arranged for it to be excavated, revealing charred human bones and ashes. Historical evidence to the contrary, Hardy chose to believe that the stone was the site of human sacrifices performed by Druids, priests of the Celtic tribes in Britain at the time of the Roman conquest.