Nobody Comes- Thomas Hardy

Maddalena Cappelletti and Marie D’Alessandro

Tree-leaves labour up and down,And through them the fainting lightSuccumbs to the crawl of night.Outside in the road the telegraph wireTo the town from the darkening landIntones to travelers like a spectral lyreSwept by a spectral hand.

A car comes up, with lamps full-glare,That flash upon a tree:It has nothing to do with me,And whangs along in a world of its own,Leaving a blacker air;And mute by the gate I stand again alone,And nobody pulls up here.

Context

• Written in 1924 (84 years old)• Florence Hardy was very ill• Long and anxious wait for return of his wife

and brother• Personal poem, some reference to economic

boom and modernization, use of more machinery

Theme and Content

• Isolation and anxiety: Alone with thoughts, not knowing what will happen and if his wife and brother will come back.

• Contrast between his rural background and globalization and economic boom after ww1 «telegraph wire (4)» «spectral lyre (6)».

• Sadness and despair: «blacker air (12)» coming from car adds to his mood and the general theme.

Poetic Rhyme/Rythm/Meter/Devices

• Sonnet- 14 lines• Set rhyme scheme ABBCDCD• No obvious meter• Visual imagery: Hardy describes a windy evening with the

narrator looking out the window waiting. Through the trees, he sees a faint light which fades into the darkness.

• Personification: a telegraph wire leading into town hums to people who pass by as though a ghostly lyre is played by a phantom player.

• The whole poem can be seen as a pathetic fallacy, as the weather mirrors his feelings

Personal Response

• The mood of the poem is anxious, seeing as the narrator is waiting for the return of his ill wife and a general change in his life.

• There is a feel of dispiritedness that one can often find in the poet’s works.

• We personally thought that the poem was very touching and thought-provoking.

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