Here

I am a man now.
Pass your hand over my brow.
You can feel the place where the brains grow.

I am like a tree,
From my top boughs I can see
The footprints that led up to me.

There is blood in my veins

That has run clear of the stain
Contracted in so many loins.

Why, then, are my hands red

With the blood of so many dead?
Is this where I was misled?

Why are my hands this way

That they will not do as I say?
Does no God hear when I pray?

I have no where to go
The swift satellites show
The clock of my whole being is slow,

It is too late to start

For destinations not of the heart.
I must stay here with my hurt.

1. The speaker is saying that this is where he is, and that this is a very depressing place. He is left "Here"
because he lacks the essential ability to properly find a solution, and go where he wants to be.
Throughout the poem, there is no real sense of location and it could be set anywhere.The readers
themselves imagine the meaning of the word “here”. That is why the title is figurative.
2. Theme: The struggle of a lonely man and the realization that he has been misled throughout his life.
Leaning to accept the situation in which you find yourself. The mood of the poem is Depressing,
Sorrowful that vividly conveys the brutal and traumatic experience of war.
3. Stanzas One and Two
In the poem’s first stanza, the speaker declares that he’s grown into a man. The second stanza adds to
this, describing him as “like a tree.” He has grown to the limit of his ability, and if one passes their hand
over his brow, his wisdom and new knowledge as a fully grown man are palpable.
Stanzas Three and Four
The poet is using the image of one’s “loins” to speak about manhood. Speaker knows that he has
escaped “the stain” that other people did not.But, as he does so, he realizes that his hands are red with
the “blood of so many dead.” At the end of the fourth stanza, he asks if this is where he was misled. This
suggests that he’s been fighting for a cause throughout his life that he’s now questioning.
Stanzas Five and Six
The next stanza contains two more questions. His hands “will not do” what he says. This suggests a
difference between what he knows he should do and what he actually has to do. Plus, when he turns to
God, it seems as though he does not “hear”.In the sixth stanza, the speaker’s feelings of loss, confusion,
and fear, are intensified. even if he did have a place in mind, he’s being watched by “swift satellites.”
The “clock” of his “whole being is slow.” This suggests that the speaker is paralyzed by the realizations
he’s coming to about his life.
Stanza Seven
It’s clear in the last stanza that the speaker is resigned to dealing with his “hurt” no matter the
consequences. It’s too late for him to make any significant changes in his life.
4. Simile of a tree symbolizes images of growth,wisdom, tree of life, the people that have brought the
speaker to this point and created a sense of who he is. Symbol of blood as associated with cleanliness
and staining. The words "has run clear of the stain" also have a reference to Jesus' sacrifice. Image of the
clock- symbolic of time,the future,the past,all of life that had led to this moment and created who you
are. Could the fact it is running slow also be a reference to old age and suggest that perhaps time is
running out for him.
5. The lyrical hero of the poem is the speaker. That fact that it is told in first person suggests, it is a
poem about introspection and self-awareness.Commonly, the speaker of ‘Here’ is interpreted as a
soldier. Perhaps, a soldier of the Second World War. One possible interpretation is that this individual
has been engaged in a violent conflict, then only later in life, regret the violence he was a part of.
6. ‘Here’ by R.S. Thomas is a seven-stanza poem divided into sets of three lines, known as tercets. These
tercets are written in a simple rhyme scheme of triplet that contains three-lined stanzas with the same
rhyme,like AAA BBB, using different end sounds for each stanza. For example, the rhyming of “now”,
“brow” and “grow”.
The rhythm is two-syllable metters(trochee)