The Voice

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,
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,
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
Heard no more again far or near?

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

 

Poems by This Author

Afterwards by Thomas Hardy
When the Present has latched its postern behind my
An August Midnight by Thomas Hardy
A shaded lamp and a waving blind
At the Entering of the New Year by Thomas Hardy
Our songs went up and out the chimney
At the Piano by Thomas Hardy
A Woman was playing
Channel Firing by Thomas Hardy
That night your great guns, unawares,
During Wind and Rain by Thomas Hardy
They sing their dearest songs
Hap by Thomas Hardy
If but some vengeful god would call to me
How Great My Grief by Thomas Hardy
How great my grief, my joys how few
I Found Her Out There by Thomas Hardy
I found her out there
In the Garden by Thomas Hardy
We waited for the sun
The Convergence of the Twain by Thomas Hardy
In a solitude of the sea
The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
The Glimpse by Thomas Hardy
She sped through the door
The Going by Thomas Hardy
Why did you give no hint that night
The Interloper by Thomas Hardy
There are three folk driving in a quaint old chaise
The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy
"Had he and I but met
The Oxen by Thomas Hardy
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock
The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy
"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
The Subalterns by Thomas Hardy
The Year's Awakening by Thomas Hardy
How do you know that the pilgrim track
To A Sea-Cliff by Thomas Hardy


Further Reading

Poems about Voice
Hearing your words and not a word among them (Sonnet XXXVI)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
If My Voice Is Not Reaching You
by Afzal Ahmed Syed
Lift Every Voice and Sing
by James Weldon Johnson
Meeting at Night
by Robert Browning
On Silence
by R. Zamora Linmark
Silences
by John Montague
Speedway
by Cedar Sigo
The Keeper's Voice
by Mike Carson
The Little Mute Boy
by Federico García Lorca
The Man Whose Voice Has Been Taken From His Throat
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Time
by Chris Martin
Voices
by Sharon Olds