Thomas Hardys A Broken Appointment

Many readers contend that they can read lyric poetry without feeling or evocation of emotion, but this cannot be so. The reader must respond to the emotions of lyric poetry, letting himself empathize with or criticize the speaker. Lyric poetry is analyzed in terms of tone or mood, and these concepts are impossible to separate from the emotion or feeling of the poem. Thomas Hardys A Broken Appointment exemplifies lyric poetrys ability to evoke a readers emotions, culminating in pity for the speaker and his situation. The speakers resigned acceptance is seen through rhyme scheme and almost unvarying iambic pentameter, but the shifts in tone and subtle metrical substitutions ultimately show the speaker broken by time and pitied by the reader. The structure of Hardys poems is very important to any one as a whole. Hardys unique stanzaic structure of A Broken Appointment is as follows:

You did not come, And marching time drew on, and wore me numb. Yet less for loss of your dear presence there Than that I thus found lacking in your make That high compassion which can overbear Reluctance for pure lovingkindness sake Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum, You did not come.

You love not me, And love alone can lend you loyalty; --I know and knew it. But, unto the store Of human deeds divine in all but name, Was it not worth a little hour or more To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came

To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be You love not me? (1-16)

While each stanza is composed of a traditional quatrain, with rhyme scheme ABAB, the quatrains are framed by unequal couplets. These couplets are iambic dimeter, and the couplet at the beginning of each stanza rhymes with that at the end of each stanza. The first and last line is the same in each stanza. The quatrains themselves are iambic pentameter. In each stanza, the couplets introduce what the speaker has somberly accepted while he addresses his internal audience in each quatrain. This rigidly regular rhyme scheme of AABCBCAA/DDEFEFDD emphasizes the calmness, or resignation, in the speakers reproach. This develops a monotonous sound, lac king any sudden interjections or emotions. Resignation is implied because the speaker can carry on without any outward shift in feeling. The highly regular iambic pentameter within the quatrains furthers this point. Hardy grabs the readers attention with his first line of dimeter in stanza one. You did not come is a brief, forceful statement (1). The power of the concise rebuke affects the reader. In rhyming the long vowel sounds throughout lines 1 and 2, You did not come/And marching time drew on, and wore me numb, the speaker imparts a somber mood, perpetuated in the long u end rhyme. Marching time implies that time is uniformed, passing the speaker by and wearing him down (2). The vocalic glide of w emphasizes the smooth motion of time wearing him down. ?? The precision with which times passing is described with leaves the reader pondering if Hardy himself experienced such a situation and is therefore able to portray them through his speaker. One who may not have endured such a situation may not be able to explain the numbing of time. Continuing in line two, a spondee replaces an iamb in the third foot. Stressing both syllables of drew on accentuates the slow passing of time (2). Times passing is not a sudden movement but a slow and painfully drawn out cycle. The speaker has been worn numb, and can therefore somberly relate the memory with an attitude of resignation (2). End stopping line two finishes the complete thought of the couplet, ending the speakers discussion of himself. The conjunction yet in the next line emphasizes the introduction of a new idea (3). The speaker moves easily into his unnaturally calm reproach. The rebuke flows as emphasized in the liquid l alliteration in less for loss (3). The liquidity of this alliteration flows into the metrical substitution. A pyrrhic foot is substituted for an iamb in the fourth foot of line three. By not stressing of your, the reader is able to stress dear presence in the fifth foot (3). This spondaic substitution stresses that this woman is very dear to the speaker. Despite the speakers fluidity of speech in line three, the whole stanza does not flow so easily, and the phonetic sounds of line four contrast those of line three. The enjambment at the end of line three links the th dental fricative of there to those of than, that, and thus noted in Hardys line four: Than that I thus found lacking in your make (3-4). The combination of these dental fricatives and the guttural ck of lacking

implies that this reproach is not easy for the speaker to give, even after he has been numb[ed] by time (2). This struggle disrupts the calm and easy flow previously evidenced in the speakers voice, and brings about a change in tone from somber acceptance to indignation. The reader senses that the speakers somber acceptance of the memory has been shaken; he is possibly not as resigned as previously thought but rather indignant. In lines five and six, the speaker reveals that the woman lacks That high compassion which can overbear / Reluctance for pure lovingkindness sake. Because he has obviously contemplated the situation over time, his claim about what the woman lacks comes easily. This is supported by the enjambment of line six. On the other hand, it is clear that the speaker is still somewhat bitter in his reproach, furthering the tone of indignation. By the substitution of the spondee pure lov in the third foot of line six, the speaker emphasizes the purity of his request for her presence. This evokes pity for the speaker whose pure request was met by a lack of compassion. The couplet accentuates the readers feeling of pity towards the speaker. A spondaic substitution of Grieved I for the first foot of line seven signals a shift from rebuke of the woman back to consideration of the speaker himself. By inserting a caesura after when in line seven, Grieved I, when, // as the hope-hour stroked its sum, the readers focus transfers from the speakers grief to his fleeting hope of the hour in which the woman would come. This separation of grief and hope makes the last line of the couplet even more tragic to the reader. The trochaic substitution You did not come in the first foot of line eight puts more emphasis on the poems internal audience. The parallel stress of the first syllable of both line seven and line eight links the stress on Grieved to the stress on You and therefore links the speakers grief to the woman (7-8). The first stanza as a whole reveals that the speaker has accepted--at least outwardly--that this woman did not come, though this acceptance is somber and mixed with indignation. One notes the slight shifts between somber, resigned acceptance and a sense of indignation. These unsteady shifts in tone cause the reader to question the steadiness of the speaker and his supposed acceptance throughout the second stanza. The second stanza begins the same way the as the first. The opening dimeter You love not me is a forceful statement made by the speaker (9). He is not questioning whether or not the woman loves him, but rather knows that she does not. The regularity of the iambic basefoot in this first couplet supports, once again, a resigned acceptance in the tone. This regularity suggests that over time the speaker has accepted the womans lack of love. The liquid l alliteration in And love alone can lend you loyalty flows until it is abruptly end stopped by the semicolon (10). This abrupt end to the discussion of love suggest that there may once have been a relationship between the speaker and the woman and that it too was abruptly stopped. After this abrupt stop, the speaker introduces the past into the present. The statement I know and knew it shows that the speaker himself is still dwelling partially in the past (11). The speaker knows the woman does not love him and must accept this as inevitable. Although the speaker must will to accept the given situation, he does it with resignation, knowing that nothing else can be done. Conversely, this break in the calm acceptance of the first stanza makes the reader question whether or not the speaker has truly accepted the situation, considering he is still dwelling on a past memory. In reading line ten, I know and knew it. // But unto the store,

the caesura after it stops the consideration of love and reverts back to consideration of the womans action-or lack of action. This is similar to the structure of the first stanza in which the first two lines are devoted to the speaker himself and then the focus switches to the woman. In continuing to examine the second stanza, the reader notices the emphasis the speaker places on deeds divine (12). The long vowel sounds contribute to the somber tone. The speaker now only considers why the woman would not seek to do a deed divine in all but name, rather than why she did not come or does not love him (12). Likening this womans lack of action to lack of doing a divine deed appears somewhat grandiose. The reader must question if Hardy is ironizing his speaker. Perhaps line twelve is a hyperbole fashioned by Hardy in order to portray this ironization. On the other hand, the speaker may simply be expressing himself in an exaggerated way as it is the only way to convey such depth and expanse of emotion. Line thirteen questions: Was it not worth a little hour or more, and the alliteration of the vocalic glide of the consonant w as well as the liquid l in little makes this line flow quickly into the next (13). This emphasizes how quickly the little hour or more would have passed (13). Though the speaker appears calm, he appears to be somewhat indignant, brooding upon the womans misdeeds though time has passed. This sense of indignation becomes clearer towards the end of the second quatrain. In line fifteen, the speaker defines that the divine deed mentioned earlier would be To soothe a time-torn man (15). The t dental alliteration in time-torn emphasizes, as in stanza one, the effects of time upon this man (15). He has been torn by time, a point furthered by the metrical substitution of spondee for the third foot (15). The spondee emphasizes how time slowly tore this man and perpetuates the somber tone. Not only has time torn the speaker physically, but also emotionally and mentally. Evidence of this can be seen in line fifteen as it ends with an anacrusis. The extra syllable seems even more obvious among the rigid regularity of pentameter throughout the rest of the stanza. Throughout the poem, the speakers voice has been calm, but the time has worn him, numbed him, and torn him to the point of almost breaking. This calmness that has masked the speakers indignation throughout the poem is finally breaking. This extra syllable at the end of line fifteen is evidence of this. If even was read as a syncope, evn, the effect of the breaking of the reader would not be nearly as forceful. The line seems to run on as if the speaker may suddenly lose his calm faade and refuse to accept what time has caused him to accept with resignation. The tonal shifts in the last lines of this stanza accentuate the speakers breaking point and unsteady emotions. A tone of indignation merges with that of resignation to characterize the quatrain of the second stanza as in the first stanza. The poignant last line of the second stanza, though it is parallel to the first line of the second stanza, is not as definitive: You love not me? (16). The speakers calmness has been tested and partially broken. He does not seem so accepting of the situation anymore, if he ever truly was. Instead of leaving the reader with a firm statement of resigned acceptance as in the end of the first stanza, one is left questioning any acceptance at all. Although the tearing of time causes the speaker to accept the broken appointment with resignation, can the speaker truly accept something if he has been numbed by time, or is this somber acceptance simply a faade? Because the speaker still harbors a feeling of indignation, he cannot have completely accepted the memory. Resignation seems to be an outlet for the

speaker to forget such a broken appointment, and the reader is left pondering this idea of forced acceptance over time. Can one truly read A Broken Appointment and not be moved to any emotion? Whether the emotion is a sense of pity for the speaker or a sense of annoyance because he is still dwelling on the past, the reader has no choice but to be moved. Emotion is, after all, a characteristic of being merely human