The similarity between the poems is that grief is presented, and that they speak of a loved one being lost. However, there are more differences. First of all, the poems come from the opposite perspectives. Hardy's poem is from the perspective of the mourner, the person who lost a loved one, and Rossetti's poem comes from the perspective of the person who was lost. So, there is that major difference.
There is also a difference in overall message. Hardy is very mournful, very sad, and haunted by his wife-the image of her, and her entire self. He longs to see her "Let me view you, then,/Standing as when I drew near to the town/...Yes, as I knew you then." He longs for her again. He feels the wind carries a message from her, and is dragged by her memory out into the wind, "faltering forward/leaves around me falling,/wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward." So the poem ends with an image of him out in the cold, covered in leaves and rain, mourning his lost love. On the other hand, Rossetti's poem forbids her love to mourn her loss. She says instead that "If you should forget me for a while and afterwards remember,/ do not grieve:/...Better by far that you should forget and smile/Than that you should remember and be sad." She wants him to be happy, even if it means to forget her for a while.
Both are unique presentations of grief, but have very different feels and messages.
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