Neutral Tones

In “Neutral Tones,” the speaker relays a description of a winter’s day on which they had a moment with a lover. Looking back “since then” (Line 13), the speaker realizes that the moment and location were symbolic of the lover’s betrayal and the death of their relationship. Their passion was reduced to “neutral tones” as the beloved’s feelings for them changed to something devoid of warmth.

The poem begins with the speaker describing the “winter day” (Line 1) on which the lovers met. A conversation took place between them “by a pond” (Line 1). As the two stood there, there was no physical contact between them. The winter “sun was white” (Line 2), and “[a] few leaves lay” (Line 3) after having “fallen from an ash” (Line 4). However, the speaker loads these images with an emotional register that shows how the speaker suspected that the relationship was doomed. The life-giving sun was bleached as if “chidden of God” (Line 2), suggesting the removal of any blessing from the divine. The mention of dropped “leaves […] on the starving sod” (Line 3) shows how the cold ground offered no sustenance or hope of revival. The labeling of the tree as an “ash” (Line 4), while obviously clarifying its type, also implies something once alive that has been incinerated. The grayness of the leaves themselves also suggests depletion of color and vibrancy.

This dismal tone is exacerbated by the discontinuation of passion shown in the speech between the lovers. The beloved’s gaze is described as looking on the speaker as if they were a “tedious riddl[e] of years ago” (Line 6). This suggests that the lover had been trying to figure out their connection to the speaker for some time and was tired of the task. Trying to talk through their distance felt like a game in which no one wins, as “some words played between [them] to and fro” (Line 7). The fact that the dialogue is not quoted suggests that the words were not memorable and were perhaps mere formalities. There is once more a sense of neutrality or boredom on the lover’s part toward the speaker. As they spoke, the meaning of what they said and meant was “lost the more by [their] love” (Line 8). The couple were just sharing remnants of what they used to be or, in more modern terms, going through the motions.

In Stanza 3, the speaker describes how they realized that their partner no longer loved them: “The smile on [the lover’s] mouth was the deadest thing / Alive enough to have strength to die” (Lines 9-10). That there was absolutely nothing left between them is solidified by the lover’s “grin of bitterness” (Line 11), which strikes the speaker as equivalent to “an ominous bird a-wing” (Line 12). This simile suggests another harbinger of death. The ellipsis at the end of the third stanza, right after the mention of the bird image, also suggests the finality of the ending. There was nothing left to say or do at this point; the relationship could not survive.

While the poem may at first appear to be happening within the time frame of the “winter day” (Line 1), the opening of the final stanza confirms that some time has passed. The speaker is now in the present, a time “since then” (Line 13). During the intercession, the speaker has received “keen lessons that love deceives, / And wrings with wrong” (Lines 13-14), which may suggest that the speaker has realized that the lover betrayed them with another. This knowledge makes them look back on the encounter at the pond. For the speaker, the betrayal “shaped […] / [their lover’s] face” (Line 15) in that moment. The speaker also realizes that the surrounding landscape has now become a personal symbol of the event and remembers “the God curst sun, and a tree / And a pond edged with grayish leaves” (Lines 15-16). Here, not only is the lover’s landscape desolate with actual winter, but it is also metaphorically cursed. The relationship is now a barren wasteland and cannot be replenished.