a wife in London

• the poem speaks as an observer creating a detached tone showing the wife's grief as an inevitable fact of war
• irregular rhythm and dashes force the reader to focus on tragedy and the devastating side of war
• the poem is split into two halves like a novel or poem creating again a sense of inevitability that tragedy is bound to happen as a result of war
• "she sits in tawny vapour ... behind whose webby fold on fold "


  the wife is presented as alone

  the vapour is thick and yellow creating an aerie sense

  webby fold on fold creates the imagery of a spiders web suggesting she is stuck in her fate

  repetition of fold suggests it is never ending, suggestig grief never truly goes away
• " waning taper ...... street lamp glimmers gold "


  the burnt down candle suggests her husbands life is almost over and cut short.

  unusually the light is not associated with warmth or comfort, instead the cold adds to the anticipation of the fore coming bad news
• "knocks crack", "shaped so shortly"

  onomatopoeia has a violent harsh effect, it's contrast to the quietness in stanza 1 makes it seem louder and have more effect. makes it seem urgent.

  sibilance creates pace again adding to the urgency of the telegram's news
• "fog hangs thicker"


  the wife's grief has became deeper and worse
• "his hand whome the worm now knows "

  shocking vivid imagery showing also the physical devastation of war
• "full page of his hoped return"

  optimistic language for future plans creates this painful irony for the ready.
• "and of new love they would learn"


  contrast between untimely death and new love is interesting as it makes the death more devastating the more we understand his hopes in life
• the ABAB rhyme scheme is only broken in the second stanza which shows the wife's struggle to take in this information
• Thomas Hardy was a novelist

  referencing the Boer war

  the fact that it is "A" wife reflects how many lives where lost in the war