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During Wind and Rain - Main Themes

            Hardy wrote "During the Wind and Rain" in 1917, five years after his wife Emma Hardy's death in 1912. Like lots of his poetry after her death, Thomas Hardy's poem reminisces Emma's life. In this poem Hardy focuses on her family and the inevitability of death. All four stanzas have a repeating format. There are five lines painting a happy scene followed by two lines full of sadness and grief in juxtaposition to the first half to starkly contrast the two emotions. An eclipse that illustrates the passage of time separates the two halves of the poem. The rhyme scheme repeats itself between the stanzas as opposed to the lines, which reinforces the feeling of inevitability. The penultimate line is repeated through the stanzas as well as an exclamation of sadness: "Ah, no; the years.".
             In the first stanza Hardy describes the family singing with "one to play" while "the candles" are "mooning each face." This first part of the stanza is happy as the family is "singing their dearest songs." Then the stanza changes after an eclipse that Hardy uses to show the passage of time. The happiness in the stanza is overshadowed by the grief in the final two lines. The final line especially is the most ominous. The "sick leaves" foreshadow disease and death, which is reinforced by how they "reel down in throngs." The word "reel" also has connotations of illness as a person might reel when feeling faint or ill. The word "reel" also means a Scottish or Irish dance. This creates a strange contrast in sad final lines. The word "throngs" is used to express the multitude of the leaves falling down which creates an image of uncontrollable death and passing time.
             In the second stanza Hardy continues the theme of happiness overshadowed by the ominous passage of time. Hardy subtly reinforces the inevitability of death by adding the difference of age into the second stanza.


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