"Ah, are you digging on my grave,
             My loved one? — planting rue?"
 — "No: yesterday he went to wed
 One of the brightest wealth has bred.
 'It cannot hurt her now,' he said,
             'That I should not be true.'" 
 
 "Then who is digging on my grave,
             My nearest dearest kin?"
 — "Ah, no: they sit and think, 'What use!
 What good will planting flowers produce?
 No tendance of her mound can loose
             Her spirit from Death's gin.'" 
 
 "But someone digs upon my grave?
             My enemy? — prodding sly?"
 — "Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate
 That shuts on all flesh soon or late,
 She thought you no more worth her hate,
             And cares not where you lie. 
 
 "Then, who is digging on my grave?
             Say — since I have not guessed!"
 — "O it is I, my mistress dear,
 Your little dog , who still lives near,
 And much I hope my movements here
             Have not disturbed your rest?" 
 
 "Ah yes! You dig upon my grave…
             Why flashed it not to me
 That one true heart was left behind!
 What feeling do we ever find
 To equal among human kind
             A dog's fidelity!" 
 
 "Mistress, I dug upon your grave
             To bury a bone, in case
 I should be hungry near this spot
 When passing on my daily trot.
 I am sorry, but I quite forgot
             It was your resting place."

Thomas Hardy

I can’t stand Willy Wet-Leg, 
   Can’t stand him at any price. 
   He’s resigned, and when you hit him 
   he lets you hit him twice.

 

According to the poem, however, turning the other cheek is cowardice. He can't stand cowardice. He is a man of action. He does not approve of passive resistance or passive struggle. Furthermore, he is a man of action. According to him, you have to take action. He's attacking the Puritan doctrine of passive education here. He rebels against the system and formal education which teaches people passive education techniques. People should be active participants in life they not merely observe, but active participants in life. He was never a passive observer and he rebels against the system which teaches us to be passive observers and not active participants in life. 

 

 

People were bathing and posturing themselves on the beach, 
 and all was dreary, great robot limbs, robot breasts, 
 robot voices, robot even the gay umbrellas.
 
 But a woman, shy and alone, was washing herself under a tap and the glimmer of the presence of the gods was like
 lilies, and like water-lilies.

 

 

The poet is on the beach at the seaside. He is observing his surroundings. He sees the crowd of people lying on the sand posturing themselves, and he sees them as robots as mechanical parts of a robot. Even their voices are robot-like and even the gay umbrellas. The colourful umbrellas are robot-like. People were bathing their costumes themselves on the beach and all was dreary. Dreary is suggesting that it's melancholy. It's boring, dull, it's sad. So while he's watching their bodies, their arms and their legs, they look like robots like robot breasts, robot voices, even the gay umbrellas look robot-like like mechanical creatures. 

He contrasts them. He's looking aside and he sees a woman, shy and alone - she's taking a shower. 

Maybe she got out of the water, of the sea and when he is watching this single individual woman, he sees the presence of the God and the presence of the gods was like. 

Lilies and water lilies.  So the gods can be found in the body of the woman and he associates the body of the woman with water lilies. First of all, we see the more pantheistic, Pagan kind of attitude in the of the poet here, because he doesn't say God. He says the gods meaning gods are multiple, many gods. 

But they can't be found in the robotic mechanical world of the human civilization, of the human society. He sees the gods present in the body of a single woman.  He is again celebrating the individual over the crowd over the collective entity, the individual over society. So when he sees them together. They all look like robots or they when they are bunched together all the people, all the individuals they look like robots.  Robots represent or suggest something mechanical, something boring, something dull. So the collective versus the personal. The individual versus the society. Nature versus civilization. So the people bunched together stand for society and for human civilization. But the woman with her genuine beauty represents the divine. You can see the gods in her body alone. Gods cannot be found in civilization, you have to be unique to feel the presence of the gods. 

 

Leda symbolically takes her revenge on Zeus by giving birth to two destructive daughters. Helen, Clytemnestra and two brothers. Helen causes the Trojan War. In this way brings destruction upon all. The civilization of Zeus and Clytemnestra, the other mortal and destructive woman because she kills her husband as a man now. So this act of rape is avenged by Leda, symbolically, spiritually, because she gives birth to two destructive daughters, Helen and Clytemnestra. Helen causes the 10 year war Trojan War and collecting their streets responsible for killing a great Greek general, that is, Agamemnon. So she acquires the mastery and the power and the wisdom of God himself. Although she is the victim here. Hegelian approach can be again taken into account. Thesis, antithesis and synthesis. So the poem represents actually the mingling, the synthesis of the immortal with the mortal, with matter and spirit. That's why Zeus has so many relationships with both mortal women and immortal goddesses, because he wants to enlarge himself he wants to extend his power. God, in short, actualizes himself in matter. 

In order to become perfect, more perfect, God actualizes himself in nature and in matter to become more perfect. Very graphic imagery. The climax of the poem is a sexual union but the eventual fate of Zeus’s civilization shows that even the gods are subjected to the consequences of their actions. 

She takes her revenge on Zeus. The offsprings of this violent conception are four children, two destructive daughters. But in fact, the poem is talking about the creation of the world. And a god who is trying to enlarge and perfectionise himself. It's a poem about dualities, binary oppositions: Moral vs immortal, God versus nature— Nature is matter.. God is spirit. God actualizes himself in nature or makes love to nature in order to become more perfect. God actualizes himself in nature and in matter to become more perfect. Because God is one and many. So if Zeus is the thesis, Leda is the antithesis and from there merging from the sexual union a synthesis, a new era is going to come to the world, new historical cycle is coming to the world. What is that? 

The destruction of the city of Troy, the end of an empire and the rise of the Greek civilization.