2). This line describes the speakers longing desire for this love of his; he is wondering when their desire will finally bring them together again. Hardy uses three kennings in this particular poem, a kenning is a compressed metaphor often substituted for a noun, it is also a "mini riddle- and it is often hyphenated. In "After a Journey- the kennings that Hardy used are "nut-coloured-, "rose-flushed- (ll. 7-8), and "mist-bow-. Hardy uses the kennings "nut-coloured- and "rose-flush- to describe the way that the speaker sees his love, her looks, and he uses "mist-bow- as a way of describing one of the places that he and his love had spent together. .
Another literary term that Hardy uses is hendiadys, which is the use of two words connected by a conjunction, instead of subordinating one to the other, to express a single complex idea. This is used when he says the word and' in "Up the cliff, down, till I'm lonely, lost,/And the unseen waters' ejaculations awe me."" (ll. 3-4). In these lines he is saying that he is looking all around for something, but he cannot find it, and he will keep searching, even when he gets lost. Next, the term of personification is used when the speaker says "But all's closed now, despite Time's derision."" (l. 16), and also when he says "And the cave just under, with a voice still so hollow- (l. 21). These are both examples of personification because personification is an attribution of personality to an impersonal thing, and neither time nor caves are human, and yet they are spoken about as if they are. Lastly, alliteration is used in this poem many times, some examples of the alliteration is "frailly follow!- (l. 24), and "Life lours,"" (l. 29). Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence.
V. H. Collins wrote in his criticism that "After a Journey-, he believed, was the summing up of the speaker's life with his one love.
