Critical Summary:
This poem too depicts a scene. The use of the word “Again” in the title shows that the poet or the protagonist has already had an experience of the kind which he describes in this poem. As in an Imagist poem, here also we get a series of pictures though at the end there is a personal element which is alien to Imagism. The scene depicted by the protagonist is, according to him, the same which he had witnessed on a prior occasion. The river is the same; the sun is the same; and the town is the same. Out of the corner of his eye, the protagonist sees a boat loaded with yellow - coloured, fully dried hay. It seems to him that the large heap of hay is a prisoner in the hold of the boat; and it is a prisoner in the same way as a leaf, falling accidentally into a basin of water, becomes a prisoner there.
There is a tar drum lying in front of the - judge's house; and the tar in it is smouldering as it is to be used for repairing the road. Four women workers are busy spreading the hot tar on the road which has pits and hollows on it and which, therefore, badly needs repairs. The time is two o'clock in the afternoon; and it seems to the protagonist that yesterday's heat still clings to the old walls of the buildings around. The heat clings to the walls in the same way as salt may cling to a human being's skin, causing him some irritation. The protagonist also finds that a light wind is blowing; but the wind is so weak and mild that he cannot judge from which direction it is coming.
The day is not yet over. (As already pointed out, it is the time of afternoon). Soon, says the protagonist, the lepers, with their bodies partly eaten away by their disease, would be walking homewards in their usual clumsy manner (after having spent all day begging money on the roads). The lepers would naturally have a look of helplessness in their eyes; and this helpless expression in their eyes would make the on - lookers indulge in all kinds of conjectures about them.
Then the protagonist abruptly says that he does not remember hearing anybody expressing his intention to mourn for him (the protagonist) at the latter's death. What the protagonist means to say is that he knows of no one who is likely to express any grief or regret at his (the protagonist’s) death. The smoke emanating from the tar spreads imperceptibly over the surface of the water in the river nearby. The protagonist wonders where the day goes. What he means is that it is not known what happens to the day when it ends and gives place to the night. And he concludes the poem by saying that, even when the sun was shining brightly, he did not quite understand this world. Thus the world is a mystery to him during the day as well as during the night. This is a world in which he finds himself an alien.
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