[R. S. Gwynn]

This came up for discussion in the Hardy seminar at West Chester. I was wondering what you'd make of its meter, given the fact that the final stanza is an anomaly.


151. The Voice

By Thomas Hardy


WOMAN much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
Saying that now you are not as you were
When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
But as at first, when our day was fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, 5
Standing as when I drew near to the town
Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
Travelling across the wet mead to me here, 10
You being ever consigned to existlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward 15
And the woman calling.