### Thomas Hardy Poetry

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#### To study for mocks
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Neutral Tones
I look into my glass
Drummer Hodge
The Darkling Thrush
On the Departure Platform
The Going
The Voice
At the word 'Farewell'

#### General Structure

* Title
* Outine of content
* Summary of each stanza/section
* Key quotes
* Theme / Message
* Levels
* Key quotes
* Structure
* Choices of structural devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
* Poetic Devices
* Choices of poetic devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
#### Neutral Tones
* Message
* Poet recalls the moment when on a bleak winter's day he and
his love realised that their relationship was over
* The Subject
* Stanza 1
* Paints picture of them standing by a pond on a winter's day
* Bleak landscape features set a dismal tone and reflect the
bitter mindset of the speaker
* Stanza 2
* Hardy describes the lover
* The description of the woman's glance and their conversation
suggests that their love had become boring and meaningless to
her.
* Stanza 3
* Hardy focuses on the dead smile on the woman's mouth, the
smile that is no longer alive and joyous
* Stanza 4
* Finally Hardy reflects upon this incident and the nature of lo
ve
* He notes that whenever he experiences a painful reminder of
deceiving love, he pictures the woman's face and the winter
landscape by the pond.
* Themes

* Poem is a sad and pessimistic reflection on the effects of the

passage of time on human relationships.
* Pessimism about love
* Primarily portrays love as painful and doomed
* Appears to be a personal outpouring of feeling but is in fact
a detached and emotionally restrained poem. This detachment
is characteristic of Hardy.
* Pessimism about the modern era
* One of Hardy's earlier poems written in the middle of the
Victorian era.
* Tends to reflect the mood of the post victorian, modern world
* Nostalgic for the security and optimism of the victorian era
* Modern poets had lost confidence in their own authority and
also the authority of institutions.
* Power of imagination in general has failed
* Poet's Method
* Choice of structure
* Four tetrameter quatrains
* Tetrameter line shorter than english norm and so such lines
evoke feelings of sparseness and constraint
* Rhyme also reflects the mood
* ABBA encloses entraps and offers no way forward.
* The whole poem is shaped like this
* Choice of Key Poetic Devices
* The controlling metaphor
* `Netural Tones`
* The scene is drained of colour
* Bleak landscape features act as a use of pathetic fall
acy
where nature reflects the mindset of the speaker
* Irony
* Title is ironic
* Colors of landscape are neutral but the mood these col
ours
create is dismal not neutral
* The lover's features may seem neutral or indifferent b
ut they
are in actuality bitter and hurtful
* General imagery of depression and death
* Filled with words of depression and death
* dead
* chidden
* God-curst
* starving
* ominous
* bitterness
* lost
* tedious
* fallen
* Feeling of dissapointment and threat
* Further evoking the painful experience of the end of a
relationship, in the third verse, oxymorons provide st
range
yokings, pairings of words that should not be together
* Sound imagery * assonance and alliteration
* Links words and sounds
* Sound is devoid of energy and vitality
* Heartache of love is linked in Hardy's mind and in his
poem

to the winter setting

* Alliteration
* The syntax
* For the most part simple
* Syntax describing landscape in first stanza is simple
* As lover is described, syntax contorts as if the memor
y
of the lover has crippled the speaker's language and
imagination
* the diction
* For the most part simple
* Archaic word chidden attracts the attention
#### I Look Into My Glass
* Message
* Looking into a mirror, Hardy reflects on the cruel irony that his
aging body still harbours the strong feelings of a much younger
man
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* Hardy looks in a mirror and wishes that his feelings had
decayed in the same way that his body has
* Stanza 2
* His distress focuses on 'hearts grown cold to me'
* He feels that the coldness of former friends and possibly love
rs
has denied him a peaceful old age
* Stanza 3
* Hardy blames the arbitrary processes of time which have wasted
his physical being while his heart retains the intense feeling
s
of his prime
* The theme
* A sad and pessimistic reflection on the effects of the passage
of time
* A personal level
* Hardy reflects on his own predicament and hints at the bitter
personal experience which informs it
* Negative criticism from his last novel
* His estrangement from his wife
* His admiration of Florence Henniker which was not
reciprocated ('Hearts grown cold to me')
* Concerned with how appearance belies reality; how other
people see him as and elderly man and how he really feels.
* A universal level * the overall effects of 'Time' and the
frailty of human existence
* Reflects Hardy's belief in evolutionary theory and his rejecti
on
of traditional christianity
* Goes further and laments the ongoing role of consciousness
within the frailty. Evolution saw consciousness as almost an
accident in a material universe.
* Poet's Method
* Choice of structure
* Subtly reflect mood and message of poem
* Four line stanzas, abab, lines 1, 2 and 4 are iambic
trimeters and line 3 is an iambic tetrameter. This form
is commonly used in hymns. Irony?
* In each stanza, the third line runs over into the last line,

speeding up the pace * spilling the emotions over

* Choice of key poetic devices
* Irony
* The cruel irony that his aging body still harbours the
strong
feelings of a much younger man
* Imagery of time
* Time is personified in the last verse stressing its
proactive part in Hardy's bitter experiences in a sudd
en
prolifiration of verbs
* Hardy metaphorically paints his prime as the 'noontide
' or
midday of his life which he now sees as beings its eve
or
evening
* Contrast
* Ironic contrast between physical appearance and feelin
gs
* The contrast between 'eve' and 'noontide'
* The contrast between the weighty and malevolent
personification of time and the rhetorical appeal in t
he
first stanza to a God Hardy was unable to believe in
* The contrast of Hardy's desire for a quiet mind and hi
s
actual experience of the 'throbbings of noontide'
* Exclamation
* Illustrates intensity of his feelings in the first ver
se
when he exclaims "Would God it came to pass / My heart
had
shrunk as thin!"
* Sound imagery
* The alliterated 'fragile frame' insists on the physica
l age
which belies his youthful emotions
* The coldness of other people's hearts is emphasised by
the
assonance of 'grown cold' making Hardy in the next lin
e
'lonely' * the continued assonance showing the effect
of
this coldness upon him
* Assonance again ensures that we associate Hardy's grie
f with
the robbery of Time 'steals' in his old age 'eve'
* Internal rhyme and assonance help us to link another s
ource
ogf Hardy's pain: "Time to make me grieve... shakes th
is ...
frame." The ms in 'Time', 'make me' and 'frame' help t
o make
almost unconscious connections between the words and t
heir
meanings
* Repeats sense of 'shakes' in the last line 'throbbings
' to
stress what he feels
* Finally the passionate plosives in the double bs of

'throbbings' leaves us with Hardy's pain

#### Drummer Hodge
* Message
* Reflecgts on the fate of a young man, Drummer Hodge who has gone
out to fight aginst the Boers in South Africa and has died
in battle
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* Concerned with what us done to Drummer Hodge's body
* Immediate and brutal
* His body is found and unceremoniously laid in a crude grave
* His body is thrown and now lowered with dignity into his
grave
* He buried just as found like an object
* No headstone to make his grave and only landmark to mark
his burial site is the "kopje crest/That breaks the veldt arou
nd"
* Foreignness of the site to Hodge is emphasised through the
use of Afrikaans terms
* Reference to the stars recurs in the remaining stanzas of the
poem, providing a kind of linking motif
* Stanza 2
* Focuses on Hodge's mind and confusion
* In past tense
* looking back on his brief life and lack of understanding of th
e
circumstances that sent him to South Africa
* Contrast between his home and final resting place
* The "Karoo"
* The scrub and barren soil
* Foreign constellations
* Stanza 3
* Aspects of first two stanzas are fused
* In future tense
* Despite his ignorance of his surroundings, Hodge will now be a
part of the South African landscape. His remains will nourish
"some Southern tree"
* Stanza ends with a reference to the alien constellations which
will "reign" forever over his grave
* The theme
* Hardy assumes a more public voice
* First titled 'The Dead Drummer'
* The waste and futility of war
* Symbolises the many men who died in the Second Boer War
* Conflict between Boers and British
* Choice of title is significant
* Drummers were the youngest men still almost boys.
* We don't even know his name. "Hodge" is just a nicknam
e
* Reflects the fact that he like so many other was unkno
wn
to those in charge of the war and unimportant to them
* British imperialism
* Britain viewed its imperialistic expansion as a moral
responsibility using Darwin's theory of evolution as a rationa
le
for exerting greater controle over their colonies.
* Hardy was moved to note that 'civilized' nations had not learn

t
better ways of settling disputes than the old and barbarous on
e.
* Ironically Hodge may gave felt a closer affinity to the Boer
farmers he had been sent to fight than the people who sent him
* Prejudice
* "Hodge" was a slang word for an agricultural labourer and had
all the demeaning connotations of 'country bumpkin'
* Hardy hated such terms being used
* Hardy affirms Hodge's individuality and challenges the
stereotypes assigned to him
* Hardy doesn't write his body is thrown but rather that he is
thrown reminding us that this is happening to a person
not just a body
* The indifference of the universe
* He is showing the littleness of a man in the face of an
indifferent unverse and its contellations
* The ongoing references to the foerign starts and constellation
s
at the end of each stanza seem to celebrate Hodge
* Unlike a man who wastes fellow men, nature wastes nothing
* The poet's method
* Choice of structure
* Each stanza has the same basic structure
* First two lines about the person
* Next two lines about topography
* Last two lines about stars emphasising man's insignifi
cance
in relation to the universe which is also indifferent
to what
happens to him
* Regular rhyme and rhythm
* Regularity of rhyme and rhythm apperas to mirror the a
bove
pattern in each stanza
* Structural irony
* Reflects ongoing presence and indifference of the topo
graphy
and constellations in relation to random and temporary
nature
of the existence of man
* Ironically it also reinforces the structure and patter
n that
is conspicuously absent from Hodge's life
* Choice of key poetic devices
* Irony
* Central irony of the poem is that the simple country b
oy
from Wessex is permanently transplanted to a foreign l
and
* Contrast
* Between West Country home and remote alien resting pla
ce
* The use of Afrikaans terms that would have meant nothi
ng
to Hodge
* The scrub and barren soil
* The stars that are so different from the stars back ho
me
* Alliteration

* The 'th' in 'they throw in Drummer Hodge' highlights t

he
violent unceremonious burial
* The 'br' in 'breast and brain' connect his soul and bo
dy
* Diction
* Choice of slang term 'Hodge' to highlight the prejudic
e
* Exotic language in references to the foreign stars and
constellations which act to celebrate Drummer Hodge
#### The Darkling Thrush
* Poem is set at the end of the day at the end of the year at the
end of the nineteenth century
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* Opens with a picture of the poet in a reflective mood
* Leaning upon a "coppice gate"
* Gate suggests a doorway to a new place i.e. the new century
* Surveys a desolate scene.
* It is winter
* "spectre-grey" suggests a hanuted landscape
* Setting sun is compared to an eye losing power
* Its shadows are compared to the last drops of a drink
* Dark outlines of trees and sticks remind him of the strings
of broken harps
* He is alone while everyone else "had sought their household
fires"
* Stanza 2
* Continues description
* Poem written at the turn of the century
* Century's corpse refers to the turn of the century
* Poet is deeply depressed stating that the scene is "fervourles
s
as I"
* Connection between last day of year and century and the shape
if the barren landscape and a corpse at a funeral.
* Cloudy sky forms roof of the tomb
* Wind blowing through the trees represents funeral music
* Because it is winter and nothing is growing it makes the land
seem dead. The spirit of the land seems to have died
* Stanza 3
* Opens with sudden, sharp contrast, breaking the tone.
* Poet hears a song from a thrush, a "full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited"
* Poet is amazed because the thrush looks old and frail, its
feathers ruffled by strengthening evening wind
* This weak bird managed to overcome the cold and gloom and
sing with fullness and joy in its heart throwing out its soul
to the spreading darkness. Represents both hope and desperatio
n
* Does the bird sing because it knows some greater joy that the
poet is unaware of?
* Stanza 4
* Poet expresses incredulity at the bird's singing, literally
wondering what on Earth could make it so happy.
* The surrounding dark land provides little reason for this
outburst of joyful singing
* Vocabulary suggests there might be a religious or spiritual

*
*
*
*

reason for the thrush's behaviour

Poet appears to have no hope for the world
touch of irony that the thrush seems to have hope
Entire poem then sustains an image of desolation
Contrast of thrush's song servers to heighten the poet's
despair

* The theme
* Despair and pessimism about his world
* The poem was first called "By the Century's Deathbed"
* Close of 19th century compared to a bleak, wintry landscape
which reminds him of a corpse at a funeral
* Poet feels that something is over, all is changed and
civilisation has decayed, and is "unaware" of any hope for the
future
* Historical Context for pessimism
* Changes in traditional, agricultural way of life
* Industrial revolution
* Changes in traditional religious beliefs because of Da
rwin
* Change in politics and the rise of British imperialism
* Moral responsibility due to Darwin's theories
* The thrush * symbol of hope or final symbol of loss?
* Symbol of hope?
* Perhaps the thrush's song suggests that the poet's pes
simism
is unfounded
* Perhaps the thrush's song represents faith in religion
giving some hope for the future
* Hardy is ready to learn from nature
* He feels joy at its music
* Final symbol of loss?
* The thrush's song is not enough to displace the
melancholy picture described before
* The poet remains convinced that there is no hope
* The thrush is old and bedraggled
* The poet's method
* Choice of structure
* Conflict
* Choice of structure subtly reflects transition and con
trast
between the past and the future
* Traditional form of an ode
* ABABCDCD rhyme scheme
* Contrast while the form is traditional, the meaning is
modern
* Why?
* Conflict creates a tension that gives the poem
energy and
emotional depth
* Poet cannot control the chaos and decay around
him, but
he can control the form of the poem
* Contrast
* Poem is built upon contast
* First two verses are cold and gloomy while the second
two
contain unlooked-for-melody, joy and hope
* Juxtaposes the gloomy last evening of the century with
'fullhearted evensong'
* Choice of key poetic devices

* Patterns of imagery
* Metaphorical pattern of the Winter details in S1 highl
ight
the dying of the old century
* Metaphorical pattern of the funeral details in S2 emph
asise
the final death of the old century
* Metaphorical pattern of music highlights contrast betw
een
despair and hope.
* Personification
* Twilight described as the "weakening eye of day"
* The landscape as "The Century's corpse"
* Allows poet to paradoxically make the land come alive
while
at the same time describe its death-like features
* Allusions
* Poet consciously using words with a long poetic histor
y
as symbolic and ironic echoes
* Long tradition of romantic poems about birds
* Darking goes back to mid fifteenth century, 'O
de to a
Nightingale'
* Imagery of sound
* Plenty of heavy, gloomy 'g' sounds
* gate
* gray
* dregs
* Equally heave 'd' sounds
* dregs
* desolate
* day
* Alliteration is a powerful linking mechanism
* Sibilance in 's' sounds creates a soft music that suit
s the
bird. Contrasted with harsh sounds to describe the ble
ak,
wintry setting
* Capitalisation
* Capitalisation of "Hope" opens the possibility that th
ere
might be religious of spiritual reasons for the thrush
's
behaviour
* "Frost" and "Winter" also have capital letters, as if
their
presence is the most important
#### On the Departure Platform
* A dramatised account of of the sights of the speaker of a lady he is
in love with, leaves him, and boards a train
* Their relationship is at its end, and he feels that she can appear
"never as of then!"
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* Man and woman reach ticket barrier and kiss. He remains while
she passes through
* He watches her disappear "until ... She without a spot"

* Stanza 2
* He describes the "spot" as "wee white ... muslin fluff" as it
went down the length of the station platform to the carriage
door
* Stanza 3
* At times she seemed to disappear into the "dark" fo flickering
lamplights and people who did not know or care about them
* Stanza 4
* But then she would re-appear
* Finally however she vanished forever
* Stanza 5
* Since that day they had gone their separate ways
* While he hopes to see her again when the time is right, it wil
l
never be the same for them
* Stanza 6
* Poet changes tones to converse with the reader to elegantly
address the question as to why it will end, when it will
repeat when she comes back as long as he still "love her well"
* Question is self contemplative, rather than a speech between
him and a stranger
* The answer given is that love doesn't happen twice and that he
cannot predice what may happen in the future
* The theme
* Pessimism about love
* Primarily, the poem echoes a reoccuring theme in Hardy's work
which is a sad and pessimistic reflection on love and
relationships, portraying love as painful, uncertain and doome
d
* Love and age * a dual picture
* The poem presents a dual picture demonstrating that age was no
barrier to love. This is represented in the last stanza which
seems to be a colloquy between the older Hardy and his younger
self.
* Pessismism about the Victorian Era
* During Queen Victoria's reign, technologies such as the railwa
y
had been a great source of arrogant pride, but had re-shaped
the lives of millions of British subjects, sending them
flocking to cities to work in factories and live in row houses
.
The traditional agricultural way of life had been taken over
by industrialisation.
* It is interesting then, that it is the railway in the poem tha
t
is taking away and destroying Hardy's love also.
* Modern ideas about love
* It is ironic that it is the man that waits for the woman.
During this time, women were views as helpless and dependent o
n
the support of men.
* The poet's method
* How does the structure reflect the theme?
* The last line of each stanza breaks the regular rhythm in a
jarring, abrupt way, to reflect the loss and brokenness of the
speaker.
* The use of punctuation also reinforces the flow of thought and
emotion
* The first stanza flows into the second stanza just as
the

third flows into the fourth echoing the process of

alternating appearance and disappearance.
* The fifth stanza of hope is then dashed by the exclama
tion
mark. The questioning of hope in the sixth stanza is a
lso
dashed by a final exclamation mark.
* How do poetic devices reflect the theme?
* The controlling metaphor
* First announced in the title itself, is of the platfor
m of
a railway station. It acts in the poem as both a liter
al
place and an extended metaphor of loss
* It is entered through a symbolic barrier which separat
es the
man from the woman.
* She fades into the crowds, just as she fades into his
memory.
* Ironically, a railway station is a symbol of communica
tion
but not here.
* Coupled with Hardy's pessimism over Victorian technolo
gical
progress, the railway is an even more powerful symbol
of loss
* Other poetic devices are used to reinforce this central image
* The repetition of "moment by moment" and "Smaller and
smaller"
highlights the process of loss.
* The "wee white spot of muslin fluff" symbolises the
vanishing depersonalisation of the woman.
* Hardy choreographs the sad and confusing scene of a cr
owded
train station carefully. The onomatopoeia of "hustling
"
the contrasting juxtaposition of "gentle and rough" an
d
"far and near" and the symbolism of "dark" intensify t
he
scene
* The lamplights are flickering in personified "fitful g
lowers"
echoing the speakers fitful emotions and loss of hope
in the
symbolic nature of the light.
#### The Pine Planters
* Relates to characters in Hardy;s novel The Woodlanders
* Marty South's unspoken thought as she and Giles Winterbourne plant
fir trees
* Marty is in love with Giles but Giles, in love with Grace Melbury,
pays little attention to Marty
* The poem's message
* The subject
* Part 1
* Stanza 1
* Stanza 2

*
*
*
*
*
*

Stanza
Stanza
Stanza
Stanza
Stanza
Stanza

3
4
5
6
7
8

* Part 2
* Stanza 1
* Stanza 2
* Stanza 3
* The theme
* Pessimism about love and life * Part One
* The relationship between human beings and Nature * Par
t Two
* The poet's method
* Choice of structure
* The poem is written in the style of a fine lyrical poe
m
* The poem gives the impression of being astutely balanc
ed
* The balance perhaps reflects the balance between human
beings and Nature
* Choice of key poetic devices
* The controlling image
* Other poetic devices are used to reinforce this centra
l image
#### The Going
* Hardy's way to come to terms with the shock of Emma's unexpected death
* The poem's message
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* As the poem opens, the speaker is addressing his dead
wife.
He asks her why she did not alert him to her imminent
death
but left him "as if indifferent quite" to his feelings
* The wife's death is described as quickly as it occured
.
* She died in the darkness of the night but just after t
he
start of a new day. Irony.
* The poet is stunned by the sudden loss
* Stanza 2
* In this stanza his tone is almost accusatory
* She left him without saying goodbye or giving him a wa
rning
* As the day dawned he was unaware of what was happening
to
his wife and of how this "altered all"
* Stanza 3
* Accusatory tone continues
* Poet asks Emma why she compels him to go outside, maki
ng
him think that he sees her figure in the dusk in the p
lace
where she used to stand.
* He sees only "yawning blankness" and not a familiar fi
gure

* Stanza 4
* In contrast, in this stanza the speaker recalls the be
auty of
his loved one's youth when he knew her
* Lines 26-27 imply that the speaker himself was physica
lly
attractive in his youth, attractive enough to arouse t
he
interest of the young woman whose own interest, appare
ntly
also helped arouse his interest in response
* The speaker remembering her recalls his own. That was
a
period when "Life unrolled us its very best" almost as
if
they were being presented with a precious gift
* Stanza 5
* Speaker's tone becomes more openly self-accusatory
he wonders why the joy of courtship was neither rememb
ered
nor revived.
* He imagines how they might have rekindled their love b
y
revisiting the places where they had met
* What bothers him is not just her death but the deadnes
s of
their recent past.
* He regrets their failure to live life fully and love e
ach
other continuously when they had the chance
* Stanza 6
* Finally Hardy concedes that what has happened cannot b
e
changed. He now anticipates his own death
* He now imagines himself as alive but dead
* He informs Emma that she could now know how so sudden
and
unexpected a passing as hers could distress him as muc
h as
it has
* Ironically his full open emphatic declaration of love
occurs
only after it can no longer really be heard.
* The theme
* The process of grief
* Grief has cycles ranging from seemingly irrational fee
lings
of shock to guilt, remorse, pain and anger
* At this stage his outward feelings swing mostly betwee
n
remorse
* Swaying
*
* Healing
*
*

and anger
emotions
Shifts backwards and forwards between emotions
for the reader
There is meaning for the reader as well
This poem speaks for anyone who has ever been

or
ever will be similarly surprised
* The finality of death, and the ongoing process of time
* Overall realisation of the finality of death, and the

ongoing process of time. This is particularly poignant

in
Hardy's Darwinian view of the world * nowhere does he
mention
God or an afterlife or even try to blame God.
* Stressing the impossibility of revisiting the past to
change
things in the light of new awareness
* Carpe diem. Seize the day
* The poem is an implicit warning to its readers: Seize
the
Day.
* Make the most of time while you have it and never take
love
for granted.
* The speaker regrets the death of his loved one but eve
n more
he regrets their failure to live life fully and love e
ach
other unconditionally when they had the chance
* The poet's method
* Choice of structure
* The poem is in the first person, and Hardy is the speaker
* The patterns of the structure subtly reflect the message and
changing mood of the poem
* The structure
* Stanzas 1, 3 and 5 are each shaped like hour glasses
* They convey through shape as well as through t
he sense and
movement of the lines the suddenness of the ch
anges
brought by time
* Unusual inconsistencies
* The syllable count is all over the place
* The metre of the poem is surprisingly lively t
hough the
rhythm breaks down in the disjointed syntax an
d brief
sentences of the final stanza
* Brief rhyming couplet in the penultimate two l
ines of
each stanza exaggerate this jauntiness
* Highlights swaying emotions
* Particular uses of metre and rhyme
* In the first verse, the opening line runs on to the ne
xt,
re-enacting 'that quickly after the morrow's dawn' Emm
a left
this life. Third line slows reflecting Emma's calm and
indifference.
* In the sixth verse the heavy caesuras bring the pace a
lmost
to a standstill. The half finished sentences and falte
ring
rhythm show the articulate Hardy unable to find words
for
his feelings
* Structure of questions and exclamations in Stanzas 1, 3 and 5
* Stanzas 1, 3 and 5 all start with the cry or the quest
ion

Why? In each case it is followed by the differently

structured stanza containing reflections, feelings and
memories
* Choice of key poetic devices
* Special imagery of Emma
* The romanticised Emma is associated within a romantici
sed
landscape
* She is 'swan-necked' 'who rode / Along the bee
tling
Beeny Crest.'
* Her setting in Nature has the striking colours
of red
white
* Her passing on horseback suggests her power, h
er ease of
movement, and her self-assurance traits that h
ave now
all vanished because of her death
* Special imagery of time and death
* The image of morning hardening ipon the wall in Stanza
1 is
a memorably vivid way of suggesting the sense that tim
e has
stopped, that the moment of her death struck the speak
er as
crucial, unforgettable, and highly ironic
* The imagery of darkness dominates stanza 3. It implies
not
only darkness but constriction and limits; the alliter
ation
of the darkening dankness
* In the final stanza having thought about the death of
his
loved one now anticipates his own death.
#### The Voice
* Message
* The Voice is a particularly intense and urgent poem expressing
Hardy's grief over Emma
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* The poem begins optimistically with the certainty that Emma
is calling to him
* She tells him that she is not the woman she had become after
forty years of marriage, but has regained the beauty of her
youth of the time when her and Hardy's "day was fair"
* The subject is painful and criticism of Emma is implied
* Stanza 2
* The second verse expresses something like astonishment that he
is really hearing her
* As if eager to test his perceptions, he moves from hearing to
sight
* Through the power of his memory he sees her as she used to be
when they were young lovers
* The detail of this recall seems to verify its actuality
* Stanza 3
* But the next verse brings doubts
* Hardy introduces the mocking fear that all he hears is the win

d
and that Emma's death has marked the end of her existence
* Stanza 4
* The anguish of these despairing thoughts is continued in the
final doubt-ridden verse
* The leaves falling and the 'Wind oozing then through the thorn
from norward' suggest death and despair
* Yet the poem is not totally without hope. Although he is
faltering, he is still moving forward, and the woman is still
calling
* The theme
* The Voice is perhaps the bleakest of all his poem on this
subject. Writing poetry is one of the ways in which he attempts to
death with his grief
* The process of his grief
* Hardy shunned illusions and tried to face the 'Worst', but by
the same token he was sincere to his feelings and perceptions
* He feels desperately lonely, unable to cope and even physicall
y
faltering
* He still things that he can hear her voice or perhaps he just
wants to believe he can and so he is full of doubt
* He finds comfort in recollecting memories and yearns to see he
r
as she was in the good times when they were first in love
* And yet there is guilt with this yearning because of their
estrangement as they grew older
* He is left feeling desolate, not knowing how he can go on
* The paradox of healing in the grieving process
* The poem seems to present Hardy at his lowest point but it
contains the seeds of recovery
* Furthermore, by imagining he hears Emma's voice, he
paradoxically helped make it seem real to himself and the
poem does mark a real turning point * soon after he makes
the pilgrimage to Cornwall where he first met and fell in love
with Emma over forty years before
* Healing for the reader
* Perhaps ironically there is healing for the reader as well
* We know that is a hard-headed realist like Hardy can feel so
deeply the pain of loss and the appeal of nostalgia, we are
more likely to moved and healed by the same feelings
* The poet's method
* Choice of structure
* The poem is in the first person and Hardy is the speaker
* The patterns of the structure strikingly reflect the message
and changing mood of the poem
* Metre and rhyme
i
* Stanzas 1-3 Techniques creating initial hope
* They have one long stanza length sentence each
* There is a lovely anapaestic metre
* The voice of the woman coming and going on the
breeze
is suggested by the dactylic tetrameters, the
repetition
and the triple rhymes on lines 1 and 3, and th
e
abrupt truncation of the other two lines
* The strongly accented series of dactyls
(strong light light), a falling rhythm, convey
s his

yearning
* Stanza 4 techniques creating doubt and isolation
* The fourth and final stanza is shorter and thu
s distinct
from the others emphasising Hardy's sense of i
solation
* The overall patterns of rhythm stumble, finall
y emulating
the faltering steps of the aged speaker as his
hopes
of seeing his phantom-wife are dashed
* The sense of disintegration begins with the em
phatic
caesura in the first line
* The last words in each line are feminine rhyme
s
"forward" and "norward", "falling" and "callin
g"
each is followed by a comma except the last wi
th its
full stop. This has the effect of reflecting t
he poet's
stumbling, halting attempts and then all progr
ess paused
at the comma and final full stop
* The falling rhythms of the poem's penultimate
line
vividly evoke Hardy's downward spiral into the
despair
of the final line, where * now in his mind onl
y * the
woman is still 'calling'
* Choice of poetic devices
* The plain, unsentimental style
* Hardy's sincerity can be seen in his plain, unsentimen
tal
style in contrast to the artificial romance so often
expected
* For example the words "Woman much missed" could easily
have been expressed in more sentimental ways such
as "Darling much missed" or "Sweetheart much missed"
* While this simple neutral word "woman" may suggest per
haps
some of the recent estrangement the couple had suffere
d, it
makes the poem's later tenderness all the more effecti
ve
* The imagery of nature
* Hardy often portrays a wintry setting pathetic fallacy
to
convey his misery
* There is contrast between the youthful Emma in summery
atire and the wintry landscape of the present reality
* The emphasis on the effects of change and decay in nat
ure
servers to remind us of the same processes at work in
human
experience
* The imagery of sound
* Alliteration gives a feeling of pain from the thorn bu

sh
and vulnerability to the cold with the word thin even
though
technically it descibes the wind's passage
* The poet's virtual inability to go forward and his sen
se of
cold misery and of the woman calling is given to us
through the repeated vowel sound that echoes throughou
t the
verse
* Exclamations and questions
* The poem opens with an exclamation, 'how you call to m
e,
call to me.'
* The second verse initiates a series of questions: 'Can
it
be you that I hear?' and in the third verse 'Or is it
only
the breeze ...?'
* The exclamation and the questions are indicative of hi
s
unsettled state of mind, living in the happy past
'when our day was fair' longing to see her, "Let me vi
ew
you then"
#### At the Word 'Farewell'
* Published 5 years after the death of his wife Emma
* The poem's message
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* Begins by describing a woman * naturally beautiful, et
hereal
like a vision
* She was walking alone, hatless and free
* She was so delicate and gentle that she is compared to
"a bird from a cloud" that had landed lightly on the
"clammy lawn" wet with morning dew
* It then contrasts the external natural outdoor scene t
o an
internal indoor scene of a table lighted by candles wi
th
a "parting meal" prepared for the speaker
* In comparison, the quivering light of the candles made
the
outdoor scene appear strange, ghostly and unreal
* Stanza 2
* The second stanza continues the "ghost" image as the s
peaker
thought that it would be only the remotest of chances
that he
should ever see her again
* He had no thought of the possibility that in this brie
fest
of seconds, of minutes, which passed him by so quickly
that
a Plan of the past, some greater force, which had rule
d us
from birthtime, had destined them to meet there * her

in the
garden, him seeing her from the room * and that plan w
as in
working at last
* Stanza 3
* Moreover, the third stanza adds to the ethereal and sp
iritual
essence of the poem. The speaker had no idea that this
"beginnings so small" would foreshadow what fortune mi
ght
weave in the drama of the later death of Emma
* However, while he had no sense of the workings of the
"Plan"
he felt strangely prompted to step out through the Fre
nch
windows towards her, still standing alone in the gray
light
of the morning and speak to her
* Stanza 4
* The fourth stanza describes how he says "Farewell!" to
the
woman as they walk through the garden together
* The bare boughs and branches of the trees were spread
over
above their heads, tangling with each other, uniting t
hem
in a natural protective enclosure
* He was still unsure of what would eventuate; it was su
ch
a brief encounter where the scale of fortune might hav
e gone
either way. It could have been turned against love if
he had
arrived a moment earlier, or hesitated and arrived a m
oment
later, or if her attention might have been distracted
by a
feather falling from the trees or if she had walked in
a
slightly different direction away from him and out of
sight
* But he noticed how flushed she was when they came back
inside together
* However the "Farewell" acts as a proleptic marker. The
re
is a sense of ominous foreboding echoes the underlying
level
of his grief and that all will not end well
* The theme
* The process of grief
* The poem is an outworking of Hardy's grief at Emma's d
eath
* At one level it is a conscious decision to remember Em
ma in
the love they shared when they first met
* Emma is highly romanticised and idealised
* At a second level it is an unconscious reflection of h
ow
he is haunted by her memory
* The power of love

* At this level Hardy reveals the power of love

* This was love at first sight
* This was a 'natural' love
* The role of destiny, Fate and chance
* The idea of chance
* So much in life seems down to chance and luck
and fortune
* A seemingly ambigous role of Fate or destiny within ch
ance
* There is a contrast between his and Emma's vie
ws on this
* Emma has strong Christian convictions and felt
that god
was leading her on and god had a plan for her
* Hardy did not share this. He beleived in the d
arwinian
theory and did not have faith in god
* Finally
* The "Farewell" he was able to say to her at their firs
t
meeting
* The "Farewell" he regretted not being able to say to h
er at
her death
* The "Farewell" he was attempting to express through hi
s
poetry of grief
* The poet's method
* Choice of structure
* Hardy writes the poem in such a way that it could almo
st
be a eulogy for Emma
* The patterns of its structure reflect the message and
mood
* Metre and rhyme
* The poem has a regular rhyme scheme of ABABCDC
D although
the line length fluctuates throughout the poem
adding
to the uneasy and ghostly nature of the poem
* Caesuras are strategically located to add to t
he
eeriness and unsettled atmosphere
* Special use of punctuation
* Punctuation is also carefully selected and pla
ced
* The colon ending of stanza 2 shows the beginni
ng of a
list to show what occurs next in "the Plan"
* In the final stanza, there is a special abunda
nce of
punctuation in order to show Hardy's desperati
on for
Emma in a final release of emotion.
* Choice of key poetic devices
* The first farewell is linked to the natural of Nature
* A simile compares the woman to "a bird...on th
e... lawn"
* The growing light of the alliterated "dim of d
awn"

synmbolises the growing awareness of love

* The couple are enveloped and intertwined by th
e
alliterated "bare boughs overhead"
* The love is symbolised by the flushing colour
"crimson"
of "one cheek of hers burned"
* The second farewell is linked to the supernatural
e.g. fate and the immanent will
* Their meeting is like a supernatural event i.e
. decided
beforehand
* While Emma is romanticised through grief she i
s also
encapsulated within this spiritual dimension
* It is a supernatural, spiritual occasion. It i
s
metaphorically "ghostly" and this is repeated
for
emphasis
* The contrast between the external and internal
settings of life * the external light of Natur
e and
love
* Fate or chance is represented by images of "a
Plan of
the past" and "fortune might weave"
* Going "through the casement to her" suggests g
oing into
another world to see her
* The fragile sense of chance is reflected in th
e metaphor
of "the scale might have been turned" a set of
scales
potentially upset "by a feather"
* The speaker's prompting is highlighted by the
simile
"as if quicked by a spur"
* Finally the alliteration of the link between the openi
ng
"bare-browed" and the later "bare boughs" highlights t
his
contrast * the sense of freedom at the start and the l
ater
imprisonment of death and grief e.g. the "boughs" are
"bare"
#### During Wind and Rain
* Outine of content
* Summary of each stanza/section
* Key quotes
* Theme / Message
* Levels
* Key quotes
* Structure
* Choices of structural devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme

* Poetic Devices
* Choices of poetic devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
#### In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'
* Outine of content
* Summary of each stanza/section
* Key quotes
* Theme / Message
* Levels
* Key quotes
* Structure
* Choices of structural devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
* Poetic Devices
* Choices of poetic devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
#### No Buyers: A Street Scene
* Outine of content
* Summary of each stanza/section
* Key quotes
* Theme / Message
* Levels
* Key quotes
* Structure
* Choices of structural devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
* Poetic Devices
* Choices of poetic devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
#### Nobody Comes
* Outine of content
* Summary of each stanza/section
* Key quotes
* Theme / Message
* Levels
* Key quotes
* Structure
* Choices of structural devices
* Examples and key quotes
* Effect
* Relevance to theme
* Poetic Devices
* Choices of poetic devices
* Examples and key quotes

* Effect
* Relevance to theme
#### The Convergence of the Twain
* The poet's message
* The subject
* Stanza 1
* Stanza 2
* Stanza 3
* Stanza 4
* Stanza 5
* Stanza 6
* Stanza 7
* Stanza 8
* Stanza 9