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,
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.