The speaker in Thomas Hardy’s “Afterwards” speculates about the way his neighbors view him. But he does so dramatically by posing questions about what they might say after he has died. The poem consists of four quatrains, each with the ABAB rime scheme. Typical of Hardy is the long line, featuring six or seven metric feet.
First Quatrain: “When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay”
In the first quatrain, the speaker metaphorically refers to death as “the Present”; although he cannot predict when he will die, he avers that whenever it is, the time for him will be the present, not past or future. He also anthropomorphizes the Present, giving it the ability to lock the door on life after “[his] tremulous stay.”
The speaker further speculates that he might die in spring when “the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings.” If he does leave this earth at such a time, he wonders if his neighbors will remark about him, "He was a man who used to notice such things.” The “such things” refers to the “green leaves” that he turned into wings, which he further qualified as “[d]elicate-filmed as new-spun silk.”
Second Quatrain: “If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink”
The speaker has may times observed at dusk “the dewfall-hawk” as it swoops in and lands gracefully upon the thorn tree that is being blown about by the wind. Now he wonders if when he dies, if he dies at dusk, will the neighbors think, "To him this must have been a familiar sight”?
The speaker portrays himself as a nature-lover and an intense observer. He seems to be unsure if his neighbors have even been aware of his hobby; therefore, using these unanswerable questions, he dramatizes his own interests in terms of his demise. He knows that his neighbors will think and possibly ask something about him, but by focusing on his nature study, he reveals what he actually thinks about himself.
Third Quatrain: “If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm”
The speaker has often taken notice, even in “nocturnal blackness,” of “the hedgehog” as he scampered over his yard. Now he wonders if anyone will think after his demise, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, / But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."
Fourth Quatrain: “If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door”
The speaker has stood at the door of his home and gazed into the “full-starred heavens” during the wintertime. Thus, he again offers as a possibility that those “who will meet [his] face no more” might think of him,” "He was one who had an eye for such mysteries."
Fifth Quatrain: “And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom”
When the church steeple-bell in his village finally rings out his death, he wonders if anyone will think, "He hears it not now, but used to notice such things.”
