On the Departure Platform

- 6 verses of cross ryhme 

- last line shorter than the other three = diminishing final line - shows everything passing

- saying goodbye

- repition shows everything slipping away

- loss or acceptance of loss?

'We kissed at the barrier, and passing through'

- 'barrier' sense of seperation

- 'kissed' implys intimacy

- 'passing through' enjament (line carries on) contrasts with togetherness and seperation 

- 'she left me...'

'Smaller and smaller'

- metaphor for memory = as it gets further away he remembers less

- suggests she is leaving and slipping away more and more

'she was but a spot'

- metaphor

- she has turned into nothing

'a wee white sport of muslin fluff'

- 'spot' links to the 1st stanza

- describing dress floating away like memories

- etheral = floaty = not quite there = insubstanial

'diminishing platform bore'

- means disappearing into the distance links to 1st stanza

'hustling crowds of gentle and rough'

- juxtapostion and contrast 

- fragality

'carriage door'

- new beginning

'lamplight's fitful glowers'

- suggests evening

- gas lamps flicker = didn't burn steady? = links to their relationship?

- sense of things flucuating - going up and down

'dark groups'

- creates ominous feeling

'whose interests were apart from ours'

- sense of togetherness and sharing between him and her

'she would disappear,'

- enjament 

- just like lamp lights = comes and goes

'more than my life to me had vanished quite'

- meant more to him than life

- completely gone?

'penned new plans since that fair fond day'

- correspondance (love letters) = connections through alliteration and consnonance = link between people

'she will appear again'

- she will return

'perhaps in the same soft white array but never as then'

- suggests time passing = never will recapture the moment

- she will never be the same as she was in that moment

'And why, young man, must eternally fly, A joy you'll repeat, if you love her well'

- someone asking the poet a question

- why does the memory disappear if you love her so?

'o friend, nought happens twice thus; why, I cannot tell'

- poet replying

- nothing ever happens the same

- each meeting will be different = each moment must go

- you cannot pin down the past