The Hill Wife
The Hill Wife - meaning Summary
Loneliness Breaks a Marriage
The poem sketches a rural marriage strained by isolation. The hill wife, free of household work and lonely in the wild, follows her husband in the fields but drifts away one day while breaking a bough. She does not answer when he calls and hides in the fern; despite searching and asking her mother, he does not find her. The closing image, that "the ties gave," suggests a sudden, irrevocable severing of domestic bonds and forces the husband to confront a painful finality that is not death.
Read Complete AnalysesIt was too lonely for her there, And too wild, And since there were but two of them, And no child. And work was little in the house, She was free, And followed where he furrowed field, Or felled tree. She rested on a log and tossed The fresh chips, With a song only to herself On her lips. And once she went to break a bough Of black alder. She strayed so far she scarcely heard When he called her – And didn’t answer – didn’t speak – Or return. She stood, and then she ran and hid In the fern. He never found her, though he looked Everywhere, And he asked at her mother’s house Was she there. Sudden and swift and light as that The ties gave, And he learned of finalities Besides the grave.
Corrected. Thank you for notifying us.
Please correct the mistake in 2nd stanza: last line should be: "Or felled tree."