noticing this

Thither
by Samuel Beckett

thither
a far cry
for one
so little
fair daffodils
march then

then there
then there

then thence
daffodils
again
march then
again
a far cry
again
for one
so little

away dream all away

I love the sounds in this poem: the repetition of “f” noises like in “fair daffodils” and the “th”s, alongside the repeated “-ɛn” noise in “then” and “again.” They’re soothing, and at the same time heavy, and match up well with the light noises in “one / so little.”

The poem’s progression from “then there” to “then thence” gives the sense of something distant that gets farther away. But because of the repetition in the third stanza, it doesn’t really go away.

The poem grows by repeating itself, seeming to go somewhere while staying right where it began, until the very end, which comes like a wish.