[Ann Drysdale]

When Hardy changed the non-negotiable diction of "hat and gown" to the fistful of possibilities of "air-blue...", both in diction and perception, he let go of something. It must have been hard for him, but he knew in his craftsman's heart that the words were right.

In reading this poem aloud, I think one just has to trust him, to let go of everything in the last lines of the stanzas except the emotion, the grief, the stretching for the unsayable. I have always thought of them as free verse at its most perfect.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Maybe that's what the "faltering" signifies, Ann. Good point (though not quite free).

[Orwn Acra]

There are supposed to be indentations in the last stanza:

[indent]Thus I; faltering forward,
[indent]Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward
[indent]And the woman calling.

They help notate the meter, and they act as ghosts of sounds not there.