The poem "After" by Philip Bourke Marston expresses the fleeting nature of life and love. It uses repetition of the phrase "A little time" to convey how quickly moments with a lover pass. The speaker reflects on having only a short time to experience love, dreams, and intimacy with their partner before they are gone. Now alone, the speaker feels like a ghost moving through a ruined heaven. The poem suggests that without their lover, eternity in heaven would bring no joy or purpose, only endless grief and sleeping.

1. AFTER
by Philip Bourke Marston
Anouk de Laferrere & Juana Zufriategui

2. A little time for laughter,
A little time to sing,
A little time to kiss and cling,
And no more kissing after.
A little while for scheming
Love's unperfected schemes;
A little time for golden
dreams,
Then no more any dreaming.
A little while 'twas given
To me to have thy love;
Now, like a ghost, alone I
move
About a ruined heaven.
A little time for speaking
Things sweet to say and hear;
A time to seek, and find thee
near,
Then no more any seeking.
A little time for saying
Words the heart breaks to say;
A short sharp time wherein to
pray,
Then no more need of praying;
But long, long years to weep in,
And comprehend the whole
Great grief that desolates the
soul,
And eternity to sleep in.

3. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Philip bourke marston was an english poet and story writer who was born in
london on august 13 of 1850 and died on February 13 of 1887. At the age of 3
he lost his sight occasioned by the injudicious administration of belladonna
as a prophylactic against scarlet fever.
However, his blindness never stop him. His extraordinary gifts of verbal
expression and melody were soon manifested in amazing poem such as
“After”, and displaying a power of delineating the aspects of nature which,
his affliction considered, seemed almost incomprehensible. These efforts
met full recognition from the brilliant literary circle then gathered around
his father, and he also was intensely happy for a time in the affection of
Mary Nesbit, a young lady of great personal and other attractions.

4. ABOUT THE LITERATURE PERIOD
● Victorian Times in Britain
● End of Enlightenment in the world
● Beginning of Realism in the world

5. VICTORIANISM
● Industrialization
● Status consciousness between working class and upper class
● Old system of nobility
● Growing middle class
● Science vs Religion
● Political and social progress
● Nostalgia of the past
● Women’s rights reivindicacion
● Utilitarianism: what happens to the minority?

6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TITLE
The title refers to what happens “after” life once we die. In his poem,
Bourke talks about the finitude of life and how it is worthless and useless
to be in Heaven if we cannot be there with the person/people we love. We
might as well die forever and it will make no difference to being in
Heaven.

7. LITERARY DEVICES
● Anaphora : “A little time…”
○ Although it seems so long, life is short and time will never be enough.
○ We can die at any moment, so we have to seize everything we have because
someday we won’t anymore.
● Simile: “Now, like a ghost, alone I move”
○ The voice became just a memory in its lovers mind
○ The voice loses its purpose of life; it no longer has someone to love

8. ● Repetition of “little”
○ The time that the voice was able to spend with their lover was very
short and therefore it was not enough; it still wanted more moments
with him or her.
○ Maybe life was so amusing and happy that the sake of time was lost
and it passed by too quickly and suddenly it was over.
● Sibilance: “sweet to say”; “desolates the sole”
○ The ‘s’ sound represents silence. How once the lover died there were
no longer unending laughs and fun.
○ It also refers to sleep. The death of the lover that fell into an eternal
sleep

9. ● Oxymoron: “And eternity to sleep in”
○ The contradiction between the word “eternity” standing for Heaven and
life after death and the word “sleep” meaning the finitude of life tries to
explain how the voice’s life lost any kind of continuance once its lover
died. Thus its life after death would be non existent.

10. Themes; Death, finitude of life , end of
happiness, eternal love, loneliness and passing
of time
Tones; melancholic, hyperbolic as it exaggerates
death, life without the person you love and
romantic