British poet Thomas Hardy wrote "The Voice" as part of a sequence of poems inspired by the death of his first wife, Emma Gifford, in 1912. The poem's speaker, widely agreed to be a version of Hardy himself, hears a woman's voice floating over a meadow towards him. This voice seems to belong to his deceased lover, who now claims to be the woman she was back in the happy, early days of the couple's courtship. The poem explores the complex nature of grief while also illustrating how losing someone dear can feel at once sad and downright strange.
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The Full Text of “The Voice”
1Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
2Saying that now you are not as you were
3When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
4But as at first, when our day was fair.
5Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
6Standing as when I drew near to the town
7Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
8Even to the original air-blue gown!
9Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
10Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
11You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
12Heard no more again far or near?
13Thus I; faltering forward,
14Leaves around me falling,
15Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
16And the woman calling.
The Full Text of “The Voice”
1Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
2Saying that now you are not as you were
3When you had changed from the one who was all to me,
4But as at first, when our day was fair.
5Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,
6Standing as when I drew near to the town
7Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,
8Even to the original air-blue gown!
9Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness
10Travelling across the wet mead to me here,
11You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,
12Heard no more again far or near?
13Thus I; faltering forward,
14Leaves around me falling,
15Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
16And the woman calling.
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“The Voice” Summary
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“The Voice” Themes
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Grief, Nostalgia, and Regret
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The Strangeness of Death
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Voice”
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Line 1
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,
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Lines 2-4
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. -
Lines 5-8
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! -
Lines 9-12
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? -
Lines 13-16
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
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“The Voice” Symbols
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The Air-Blue Gown
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“The Voice” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Apostrophe
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Metaphor
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Pathetic Fallacy
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Repetition
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“The Voice” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Fair
- Air-blue
- Listlessness
- Mead
- Wan
- Wistlessness
- Faltering
- Oozing
- Thorn
- Norward
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- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Voice”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“The Voice” Speaker
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“The Voice” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Voice”
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More “The Voice” Resources
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External Resources
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Poems of 1912-1913 — Read the full elegiac sequence in which "The Voice" appears.
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Thomas Hardy and Emma Gifford — Learn more about the relationship that inspired this poem.
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Emma Gifford Hardy's Biography — Learn more about the woman who inspired the poem.
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Victorian Pessimism — The British podcast "In Our Time" discusses the general atmosphere of pessimism in which Hardy was writing.
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The Hardy Society — Explore a treasure trove of resources about the poet provided by the Hardy society.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Thomas Hardy
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