Hour: Structure & Language Techniques

“Hour” is a sonnet, a form traditionally associated with love poetry. Despite this, it takes a more modern, free approach to this form, showing Duffy’s unique interpretation of this classic structure.
The poem consists of 16 lines, slightly deviating from the traditional 14-line sonnet, and uses quatrain stanzas that highlight the progression of thoughts.
No traditional rhyme scheme is followed, reflecting the unpredictable nature of time and love. However, there is some sporadic internal rhyme that gives the poem a musical quality.
The poem starts with a happy moment between the lovers, moves to an acknowledgment of their limited time, and then ends with a couplet, a standard feature in a sonnet, that presents their accessibility to wealth through their love.

Duffy uses metaphors to depict time and love. For example, in ‘we find an hour together, spend it not on flowers’, the ‘hour’ is a metaphor for the limited time they have together and ‘flowers’ represents distractions or expenses that aren’t as valuable as their time together.
There is a prevalent use of imagery throughout the poem. Visual images like ‘gold, impossible to spend’ invoke the feel of opulence and timelessness.
The poem also integrates alliteration such as ‘grass ditch ditched under butterflied skies’ to create a rhythm and musicality in the poem’s expression.
The use of contrast is evident when real wealth is compared to the ‘time’s beggar’. Despite material wealth, time remains a valuable and limited resource.
The language is highly symbolic, with ‘money’, ‘jewellery’, ‘gold’, representing material wealth and ‘wine’ representing the richness and intoxication of love. The ‘candle’ fights the ‘dark’, symbolising their love braving the adversity of limited time.
Personification of time as a ‘beggar’ portrays its cruel, relentless nature.
Duffy’s usage of the second person pronoun ‘we’ establishes intimacy and solidarity with the lover.