The Voice by Thomas Hardy

Victoria Rey
April 30th, 2014
The Voice Thomas Hardy
The poem “The Voice” by Thomas Hardy, deals with a man’s pain of loss and the difficulty of accepting the absence of his loved one. By seeing the lexical choices, language and punctuation of the poem, we can notice his sense of grief, by showing the reader how alone he feels without her, and how much he misses and loves her.
Stanza one begins with the phrase “Woman much missed” which conveys feelings of mourning and regret. Furthermore, the alliteration of the sound /m/ reveals his grief. The speaker thinks this woman, a dear person for him, is calling him. He uses repetition in “how you call to me, call to me”, giving an idea of echo, emphasizing his emptiness and melancholy. The voice he hears is saying to him that now she is the way she was when they first met and they were in love, rather than the person she became in later years. By using “you” and “woman” the persona directly addresses the poem to one specific person, introducing the theme of loss; as it seems that he is talking to this woman he knew he uses colloquial and intimate language. The poem has a regular alternate rhyme, which in stanza one emphasizes the word “me”, showing to the reader that Hardy is talking about his own feelings. The second stanza begins with the rhetorical question “Can it be you that I hear”. Perhaps he hopes that she is trying to communicate with him or perhaps it is showing his puzzlement and confusion mixed with hope. Stanza two makes great use of commas, as it creates pauses in which the speaker is trying to imagine the woman and is trying to remember her with all her details. He also uses caesura “for me: yes”, to break the fluidity of the enjambment, in order to pause and think about the past, while they were in their happy moments. The use of commas, caesura and interrogation marks emphasize Hardy’s nostalgia and sorrow, as they produce a breakdown in fluidity. This punctuation suggests that he, still, cannot accept that his loved one is dead and he will never see her again. Moreover, he uses an internal rhyme of “hear/near” and “view/drew/knew” suggesting how desperate the speaker is for seeing her again. Throughout all stanza two, Hardy tries to conjure up a visual image of that woman from his memories, associated with his feelings upon her. His memories are detailed as he remembers the exact colour of her “air-blue gown!”
In stanza three it is shown that the poet is unsure whether he has actually been hearing her voice because the stanza is one long rhetorical question, or maybe he just hears the “breeze”. Hardy uses sibilance while using words such as “listlessness” and “wistlessness” to suggest coldness and desolation; also the/w/ sound in “wan wistlessness” and the alliteration of /s/ sound recreate the sound of the breeze and this creates and impression of her nonphysical presence. All along this stanza, the poet is confronting the reality of his loved one being dead, the reality that she is gone forever. The words “breeze” (because it can be associated with spirit, as you can feel it but do not see it) and “ever” strongly create the idea that she is never going to return. Metaphor is used when “You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness” to resemble the idea of her vanishing and fading away. This stanza has a confused, doubtful and musing tone. Hardy begins the last stanza with “Thus I”, showing that he is now going to talk about the present. Here the speaker suggests he knows his end is approaching. The image of leaves falling suggests decay and a non-coming death. Hardy utilizes present participles “faltering”, “falling”, “oozing” and “calling” to reinforce this idea. They show his prolonged mournful state of mind, and how the present is tormenting him. The last line shows that he is almost haunted by the memories of this woman. This last verse captures his feelings: loneliness, regret and desperation.
In this poem, the poet portrays the pain that comes with the realization that a loved one will never be seen again, that the special relationship that there was has been lost forever. The intensity of the emotion expressed in the poem makes the reader feel that the narrator is in fact the poet, but the expression of the pain of loss in the poem is of universal value.