The Going

1
The Going
2

• Why did you give no hint that night
• That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
• And calmly, as if indifferent quite,You would
  close your term here, up and be gone Where I
  could not follow With wing of swallowTo gain
  one glimpse of you ever anon! 

3

• Never to bid good-bye, Or lip me the softest
  call,Or utter a wish for a word, while ISaw
  morning harden upon the wall, Unmoved,
  unknowing That your great goingHad place that
  moment, and altered all. 

4

• Why do you make me leave the houseAnd think for
  a breath it is you I seeAt the end of the alley
  of bending boughsWhere so often at dusk you used
  to be Till in darkening dankness The yawning
  blanknessOf the perspective sickens me!
         

5

• You were she who abode By those red-veined
  rocks far West,You were the swan-necked one who
  rodeAlong the beetling Beeny Crest, And,
  reining nigh me,
  
  Would
  muse and eye me,While Life unrolled us its very
  best. 

6

• Why, then, latterly did we not speak,Did we not
  think of those days long dead,And ere your
  vanishing strive to seekThat time's renewal? We
  might have said, 'In this bright spring
  weather We'll visit togetherThose places that
  once we visited.' 

7

• Well, well! All's past amend, Unchangeable. It
  must go.I seem but a dead man held on endTo
  sink down soon.... O you could not know That
  such swift fleeing No soul foreseeing --Not
  even I -- would undo me so!

8
Write a letter as Thomas Hardy to Emma

• Base your content on the poem, The Going
• Each stanza of the poem represents a paragraph of
  the letter
• Rewrite and rephrase the poem into your own
  words, appropriate to form ie, a letter to your
  loved one, therefore requiring a personal,
  informal tone
• Think about tone, translation from poetry to
  letter, content and any ideas that you develop.
• Dear Emma,
• I cant believe it I cant believe you. You
  gave me no indication that anything was wrong no
  clue that that night was the last we would share
  with one another, and that by morning, you would
  be dead...

9
Consider these key aspects of Language. How does
Hardy use Language
To intensify his own feelings of sadness and despair? To remember the woman and what she was like To emphasise what effect her loss has had on him?
never to bid goodbye / or lip me the softest call You were she who abode / by those red-veined rocks I could not follow / with wing of swallow / to gain one glimpse of you
I saw morning harden upon the wall You were the swan-necked one Your great going / had place that moment and altered all
in darkening dankness You would muse and eye me The yawning blankness of the perspective sickens me
We might have said, in this bright spring weather I seem but a dead man held on end to sink down soon
Such swift fleeing would undo me so!