Poem by Thomas Hardy - the going

The Going

This poem by Thomas Hardy is a monologue that is written to his first wife Emma reproaching her for having left so suddenly. Even though this poem is written for his wife if a few specifications are removed it would seem that the poem could be written about anybody who had died. This poem goes through the whole process of mourning from realising that she is gone forever (stanza 1), denial like the references to haunting (stanza 2), regret for not having spent more time together (Stanza 3) to finally acceptance (stanza 5). From the quickly changing emotional tones between stanzas we can guess that Hardy wrote this poem a considerable time after her death so that he could have experienced all these stages.

The structure of this poem is a somewhat even one. The poem is composed of six stanzas each containing seven lines. The 5th and the 6th line are the always the smallest lines in the stanza and these are used to stress these ideas. In these two lines there is also a sepa...