Thomas Hardy(1840–1928)
The Voice
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,meadow
You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,heedlessness
Heard no more again far or near
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,northward
And the woman calling.
December 19121914