‘The Sign-Post’ by Edward Thomas contains a discussion within a

speaker’s mind about the progression of time and the nature of

Heaven.

‘The Sign-Post’ by Edward Thomas is a two stanza poem that is divided into
one section of ten lines and another of twenty. Thomas has chosen to
imbue this piece with a consistent and structured rhyme scheme. It follows
the pattern of aabbccdd, and so on, alternating end sounds throughout the
text. There are a few moments where the rhymes repeat themselves
though. One can see this happen in the couplet around lines 3 and 4, 12
and 13, and 15 and 16 of stanza two. In all three of these instances the
word “be” is used alongside either “sea,” “see,” or “me.”

A reader should also take note of the lengths of Thomas’ lines and phrases.
They vary greatly from section to section. Some are short, concise phrases
while others linger through three or more lines. This is a technique used to
keep a reader’s interest. The variety makes reading this piece more
enjoyable as one does not know what to expect from the use
of enjambment. This occurs when a poet stops a line before or after its
natural breaking point. One is forced to jump quickly to the next line in
order to conclude the thought.

Stanza One
Lines 1-4

The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,

And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,
Rough, long grasses keep white with frost
At the hilltop by the finger-post;
In the first stanza of ‘The Sign-Post’, the speaker begins with a short
statement describing the sea. This is only one element of his immediate
surroundings and it is said to be “dim” and “glint” with “chill.” The setting is
expanded upon within the next lines as it is made clear that it’s very cold.
The sun is “shy,” refusing to come out and there is frost on everything. The
weeds are “skelet[al]” and the grasses are “long [and] white with frost.”

This scene is placed at the top of a hill next to the “finger-post,” or sign-
post. The environment is not a pleasant one. The images used by Thomas
are dreary, cold, and abandoned. The lines also contain the first reference
to the title. One can assume this sign is going to be important to the
following narrative.

Lines 5-10

The smoke of the traveller’s-joy is puffed

Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.
I read the sign. Which way shall I go?
A voice says: You would not have doubted so
At twenty. Another voice gentle with scorn
Says: At twenty you wished you had never been born.
In the next six lines, the speaker expands on his surroundings and what
they mean to him. He is a traveller who has come across this sign and is
now taking his time deciding where to go. The speaker states that around
the scene there is the “smoke of the traveller’s-joy…puffed.” It floats over
the “hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.” This is the first time that anything
remotely joyous has been introduced to the scene.
The narrative which has up until this point been solely descriptive, switches
to the first person. This makes it clear that the speaker is in fact the traveller
who is relying on the sign to guide him. He wonders to himself, “Which way
shall I go?” After posing this question a voice that is presumably inside his
head reminds him that he would not have asked this question when he was
twenty. He is remembering what his life used to be like, and reprimanding
himself for the change. The speaker is not as confident as he used to be. He
does not trust his instincts like he did when he was twenty.

In response to the first voice, there is a second, this one replies calmly
and”scorn[fully]” to the first. It reminds the speaker that at twenty he
“wished” he had “never been born.” Youth does not guarantee that one’s
life is better, there is any number of things that can be wrong at any age.

Stanza Two
Lines 1-9

One hazel lost a leaf of gold

From a tuft at the tip, when the first voice told
The other he wished to know what ’twould be
To be sixty by this same post. “You shall see,”
He laughed—and I had to join his laughter—
“You shall see; but either before or after,
Whatever happens, it must befall,
A mouthful of earth to remedy all
Regrets and wishes shall freely be given;
The second stanza of ‘The Sign-Post’ begins with the speaker removing
himself somewhat from the narrative again. Here the lines begin with
another allusion to the power and importance of youth. The speaker
describes the loss of a golden leaf from a hazel tree and then immediately
follows up with a question from the first voice. He asks the second voice
what he will be like when he is sixty years old. The second voice now has
some authority on the matter having swooped in and reminded the first
voice about the nature of being young.

The second voice does not give the first an answer. Instead “He laughed”
and told the first voice, “‘You shall see.”’ Time is the only thing that can
show one how their life will truly turn out. There can be no accurate or
worthwhile predictions. The speaker returns to the piece at this point,
adding that he had to join in with the “laughter” of the second voice upon
hearing this question.

The second voice goes on to lecture the first on the progression of time.
Eventually, everyone is going to have to confront death.

Lines 10 -20

And if there be a flaw in that heaven

’Twill be freedom to wish, and your wish may be
To be here or anywhere talking to me,
No matter what the weather, on earth,
At any age between death and birth,
To see what day or night can be,
The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,
Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring,—
With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,
Standing upright out in the air
Wondering where he shall journey, O where?”
In the second half of this stanza in ‘The Sign-Post’, the speaker states that
heaven is perfect. Although, if it did have a flaw, it would be that one might
wish again to feel the pull of age, time, and restraint. One can “wish” as
much as they like in heaven and it is likely, the voice says, that “your wish”
will be to return to the earth.

One might want to experience again what it is to be between “death and

birth” or know “day or night.” Change does not have to be something
terrible. Unlike what the first voice proposed at the beginning of the piece.
Growing old, changing one’s mind, and taking time in decision-making is
not necessarily bad. It is all part of a process that one will miss.

When one, such as the first voice who spoke, gets to heaven, they might
also miss the seasons on earth. There will be no “Winter” or “Spring” in
heaven. Nor will there be a “poor man” or “a king” to speak with at the
sign-post. All will be equal. Heaven will not provide one with the
uncertainty that makes life interesting, especially when it is centered around
a sign-post on a cold day.

Though an active literary critic for most of his life, Edward Thomas did not write his
first poem until late in 1914, and proceeded to produce his entire oeuvre (over 100
poems, most published posthumously in the collections Poems and Last Poems)
before his death in 1917 at the Battle of Arras.
Thomas was first incited to poetry by Robert Frost, who so associated his friend with
their shared country walks that in 1915 he sent him the poem inspired by these
journeys, “The Road Not Taken,” in an otherwise empty envelope, without further
explanation (Elected, 49n.). Thomas’ reply to the poem left this implied connection
unaddressed, instead reading Frost’s poem as a foil to his own nascent poetic ideal.
While Thomas speaks in contingencies that wax self-effacing – “perhaps I had
always missed what made poetry poetry if it was here” – he also paints an incisively
clear picture of what he expects from poetry – and how his own poetry will depart
from Frost’s. Wrapped in these equivocations, he criticizes Frost’s “lack of stops” and
unclear verses, his meaning which arrives “somewhat apart from the words,” his
“simple words and unemphatic rhythms,” which were not those from which “I was
accustomed to expected great things, things I like.” In addition, Thomas corrects
Frost’s ambulatory theme itself: “I don’t pretend not to have a regular road & footpath
system as well as doing some trespassing…It is all very well for you poets in a wood
to say you choose, but you don’t. If you do, ergo I am no poet” (61-64).

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 ➜ Poems and Last Poems (Edward Thomas)
by Emily Cersonsky

Though an active literary critic for most of his life, Edward Thomas did not write his first
poem until late in 1914, and proceeded to produce his entire oeuvre (over 100 poems, most
published posthumously in the collections Poems and Last Poems) before his death in 1917 at
the Battle of Arras.
Thomas was first incited to poetry by Robert Frost, who so associated his friend with their
shared country walks that in 1915 he sent him the poem inspired by these journeys, “The
Road Not Taken,” in an otherwise empty envelope, without further explanation (Elected,
49n.). Thomas’ reply to the poem left this implied connection unaddressed, instead reading
Frost’s poem as a foil to his own nascent poetic ideal. While Thomas speaks in contingencies
that wax self-effacing – “perhaps I had always missed what made poetry poetry if it was
here” – he also paints an incisively clear picture of what he expects from poetry – and how
his own poetry will depart from Frost’s. Wrapped in these equivocations, he criticizes Frost’s
“lack of stops” and unclear verses, his meaning which arrives “somewhat apart from the
words,” his “simple words and unemphatic rhythms,” which were not those from which “I
was accustomed to expected great things, things I like.” In addition, Thomas corrects Frost’s
ambulatory theme itself: “I don’t pretend not to have a regular road & footpath system as well
as doing some trespassing…It is all very well for you poets in a wood to say you choose, but
you don’t. If you do, ergo I am no poet” (61-64).
But Thomas was, indeed, a poet. As is implied by these criticisms, the poetry that Thomas
would proceed to write is sympathetic to Frost’s aims yet diverges from his practice,
combining a less romantic, more experiential and specific concept of walking and discovery
with a more precise attention to how poetic rhythm and diction might not only present but
reflect and embed this pace.

Edward Thomas’s poem “The Sign-Post” explores a number of

related themes, including those of life and death, youth and age,
and decision and indecision. The poem opens by describing a
wintry seascape, thus helping to establish already the idea of the
passage of time. We normally associate seascapes with spring or
summer, not with winter, but this poem reminds us that even the
sea and beaches are overcome by the kind of death associated
with winter. The first six lines of the poem, then, depict a kind of
geography whose symbolism seems relevant to the rest of the
poem.
Line 7 poses a crucial question when the speaker, observing a
sign pointing directions, wonders, “Which way shall I go?” (7).
This, of course, is symbolically one of the most important
questions each person faces in his or her life. Which choices will
we make? Which literal and symbolic movements will we make?
What will be our immediate and our long-term goals? No sooner
does the speaker ask which way he will go than the voice of his
youth tells him that when he was young, he would have made a
quick decision; he would not have paused to ponder his direction.
Yet another voice reminds the speaker, and also the voice of his
youth, that when he was young he was actually full of a gloomy
pessimism and despair (10). One theme the poem very much
explores, then, is how we change over time – how we look at the
same things from different perspectives depending on our stages
in life. The idea of experiencing different perceptions at different
stages of one’s life is reinforced again in lines 11-14.

Beginning in line 14, the second voice – the voice of mature

experience – takes over a good portion of the poem, emphasizing
the inevitability of death and burial (“A mouthful of earth” [18]).
The final reality of death makes human life at any age and human
experience of any kind seem valuable. Once in heaven, the
youthful speaker will wish simply to exist again on earth,
conversing once more, as he converses now, with the voice of
maturity:
". . . your wish may be
To be here or anywhere talking to me,
No matter what the weather, on earth,
At any age between death and birth, --
To see what day or night can be,
The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,
Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, --
With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,
Standing upright out in the air
Wondering where he shall journey, O where?" (21-30)

In other words, if we experience any kind of consciousness or

self-awareness after we are dead, we are likely to miss our time
on earth and the companionship we enjoyed there. We are likely
to wish that we could be on earth again under almost any
circumstances. Merely to exist on earth can seem a joy, no
matter how old we are and no matter what directions we
ultimately decide to take.

A main theme of the poem involves a person’s divided impulses

and divided goals and ideals, although ultimately the poem
suggests that one goal we would probably share at almost any
stage of existence is merely the basic opportunity to exist.

Edward Thomas’s poem “The Sign-Post” explores a number of

related themes, including those of life and death, youth and age,
and decision and indecision. The poem opens by describing a
wintry seascape, thus helping to establish already the idea of the
passage of time. We normally associate seascapes with spring or
summer, not with winter, but this poem reminds us that even the
sea and beaches are overcome by the kind of death associated
with winter. The first six lines of the poem, then, depict a kind of
geography whose symbolism seems relevant to the rest of the
poem.

Line 7 poses a crucial question when the speaker, observing a

sign pointing directions, wonders, “Which way shall I go?” (7).
This, of course, is symbolically one of the most important
questions each person faces in his or her life. Which choices will
we make? Which literal and symbolic movements will we make?
What will be our immediate and our long-term goals? No sooner
does the speaker ask which way he will go than the voice of his
youth tells him that when he was young, he would have made a
quick decision; he would not have paused to ponder his direction.
Yet another voice reminds the speaker, and also the voice of his
youth, that when he was young he was actually full of a gloomy
pessimism and despair (10). One theme the poem very much
explores, then, is how we change over time – how we look at the
same things from different perspectives depending on our stages
in life. The idea of experiencing different perceptions at different
stages of one’s life is reinforced again in lines 11-14.

Beginning in line 14, the second voice – the voice of mature

experience – takes over a good portion of the poem, emphasizing
the inevitability of death and burial (“A mouthful of earth” [18]).
The final reality of death makes human life at any age and human
experience of any kind seem valuable. Once in heaven, the
youthful speaker will wish simply to exist again on earth,
conversing once more, as he converses now, with the voice of
maturity:
". . . your wish may be
To be here or anywhere talking to me,
No matter what the weather, on earth,
At any age between death and birth, --
To see what day or night can be,
The sun and the frost, the land and the sea,
Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring, --
With a poor man of any sort, down to a king,
Standing upright out in the air
Wondering where he shall journey, O where?" (21-30)

In other words, if we experience any kind of consciousness or

self-awareness after we are dead, we are likely to miss our time
on earth and the companionship we enjoyed there. We are likely
to wish that we could be on earth again under almost any
circumstances. Merely to exist on earth can seem a joy, no
matter how old we are and no matter what directions we
ultimately decide to take.

A main theme of the poem involves a person’s divided impulses

and divided goals and ideals, although ultimately the poem
suggests that one goal we would probably share at almost any
stage of existence is merely the basic opportunity to exist.