Symbol Analysis
We don't know too much about the speaker's landscape, but we do know that it's not exactly an inviting place. In fact, the scenery starts to resemble the speaker's inner emotions throughout the poem. (For more on this, check out "Setting.") But there's more to the setting of the poem than just the wind. The whole world seems to feel the speaker's pain in "The Voice."
- Lines 6-8: The speaker imagines the distant past, when the woman would stand outside, waiting for him, in an "air-blue gown." The gown, and the woman, in retrospect, take on the ghostly vision of the woman as she is in the present.
- Lines 9-11: We find out more about the landscape here. We have a "listless wind" and a "wet mead" (or meadow). We feel chilly and damp just reading these lines.
- Lines 13-14: Now we find out that the speaker is "faltering" as the leaves around him are "falling." The leaves are experiencing the same sensation as he is.
- Lines 15-16: The wind is still "oozing" sadly, and the speaker still hears "the woman calling." He hears the wind and the woman's voice simultaneously. Is it possible that they're one and the same?