After finishing her work, Hazel Hall’s speaker imagines her own hands as hounds she has set loose. They race away with fierce, energetic speed, and she knows she cannot call them back. Whatever the weather, they keep going—lean, pale, and single-minded—following a scent until they catch their prey. That prey is night. The poem turns the moment of stopping work into something almost wild: the hands, worn out or freed, chase darkness and rest as if they are hunting it down. The mood is both restless and relieved. There is urgency in the image of the hounds, but also a sense of release, as if the speaker’s body is finishing the day with a momentum all its own.
Finished To-Night — Summary
I have unleashed my hands, like hounds, And I must not call them back; They are off with virile bounds On the hidden quarry's track.
Though there come rain or sun — Fleet and lean and white. They will follow the scent until they run The quarry to earth, and the quarry is night.