Hardy: Selected Poems

by Hardy, Thomas; Mezey, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780140436990
• ISBN10: 0140436995
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-12-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

After the hostile reception of Jude the Obscure in 1896, Thomas Hardy devoted the last thirty years of his life to poetry. This generous selection of poems displays the wide variety of his metrical styles and stanza forms, as well as the philosophical scope of his work. While his verse is often seen as the culmination of late Victorian moods, Hardy combines irony and stoicism to forge a thoroughly modern stance against ruin. His poems illustrating the perversity of fate are some of the most authentic expressions of human sorrow and regret in the English language; and the love lyrics written for his deceased first wife constitute the best examples of the modern elegy. This volume includes an insightful introductory essay along with textual and explanatory notes.

Author Biography

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840. In his writing, he immortalized the site of his birth—Egdon Heath, in Dorset, near Dorchester. Delicate as a child, he was taught at home by his mother before he attended grammar school. At sixteen, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect, and for many years, architecture was his profession; in his spare time, he pursued his first and last literary love, poetry. Finally convinced that he could earn his living as an author, he retired from architecture, married, and devoted himself to writing. An extremely productive novelist, Hardy published an important book every year or two. In 1896, disturbed by the public outcry over the unconventional subjects of his two greatest novels—Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure—he announced that he was giving up fiction and afterward produced only poetry. In later years, he received many honors. He died on January 11, 1928, and was buried in Poet’s Corner, in Westminster Abbey. It was as a poet that he wished to be remembered, but today critics regard his novels as his most memorable contribution to English literature for their psychological insight, decisive delineation of character, and profound presentation of tragedy.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xv	(24)
Chronology	xxxix	(16)
Suggestions for Further Reading	lv	(2)
Note on the Selection	lvii
Domicilium	1	(4)
From WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES	5	(10)
Hap	5	(1)
Neutral Tones	5	(1)
She, to Him II	6	(1)
Friends Beyond	7	(2)
Nature's Questioning	9	(1)
In a Eweleaze near Weatherbury	10	(1)
"I Look Into My Glass"	11	(4)
From POEMS OF THE PAST AND THE PRESENT	15	(26)
Embarcation	15	(1)
Drummer Hodge	15	(1)
The Souls of the Slain	16	(5)
Rome: At the Pyramid of Cestius Near the Graves of Shelley and Keats	21	(1)
Zermatt: To the Matterhorn	22	(1)
To an Unborn Pauper Child	22	(2)
To Lizbie Browne	24	(3)
"I Need Not Go"	27	(1)
At a Hasty Wedding	28	(1)
His Immortality	28	(1)
Wives in the Sere	29	(1)
An August Midnight	30	(1)
Winter in Durnover Field	31	(1)
The Last Chrysanthemum	32	(1)
The Darkling Thrush	33	(1)
Mad Judy	34	(1)
The Ruined Maid	35	(1)
The Respectable Burgher on "The Higher Criticism"	36	(1)
The Self-Unseeing	37	(1)
In Tenebris I	38	(3)
From TIME'S LAUGHINGSTOCKS AND OTHER VERSES	41	(28)
A Trampwoman's Tragedy	41	(4)
The House of Hospitalities	45	(1)
The Rejected Member's Wife	46	(1)
Shut Out That Moon	47	(1)
The Division	48	(1)
"I Say I'll Seek Her"	48	(1)
"In the Night She Came"	49	(1)
The Night of the Dance	50	(1)
At Casterbridge Fair	51	(4)
The Ballad-Singer	51	(1)
Former Beauties	51	(1)
After the Club-Dance	52	(1)
The Market-Girl	52	(1)
The Inquiry	53	(1)
A Wife Waits	54	(1)
After the Fair	54	(1)
To Carrey Clavel	55	(1)
The Orphaned Old Maid	56	(1)
Rose-Ann	56	(1)
The Homecoming	57	(2)
A Church Romance	59	(1)
After the Last Breath	60	(1)
One We Knew	61	(1)
She Hears the Storm	62	(1)
The Man He Killed	63	(1)
One Ralph Blossom Soliloquizes	64	(5)
From SATIRES OF CIRCUMSTANCE, LYRICS AND REVERIES	69	(38)
Channel Firing	69	(1)
The Convergence of the Twain	70	(2)
"My Spirit Will Not Haunt the Mound"	72	(1)
Wessex Heights	73	(2)
The Schreckhorn	75	(1)
"Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?"	75	(2)
Before and After Summer	77	(1)
At Day-Close in November	78	(1)
Poems of 1912-13	79	(12)
The Going	79	(1)
Your Last Drive	80	(1)
The Walk	81	(1)
Rain on a Grave	82	(1)
Without Ceremony	83	(1)
Lament	84	(1)
The Haunter	85	(1)
The Voice	86	(1)
His Visitor	87	(1)
After a Journey	88	(1)
At Castle Boterel	89	(2)
"She Charged Me"	91	(1)
The Moon Looks In	91	(1)
In the Days of Crinoline	92	(1)
The Workbox	93	(2)
Exeunt Omnes	95	(1)
Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses	96	(11)
At Tea	96	(1)
In Church	96	(1)
By Her Aunt's Grave	97	(1)
In the Room of the Bride-Elect	97	(1)
At a Watering-Place	98	(1)
In the Cemetery	98	(1)
Outside the Window	99	(1)
In the Study	99	(1)
At the Altar-Rail	100	(1)
In the Nuptial Chamber	101	(1)
In the Restaurant	101	(1)
At the Draper's	102	(1)
On the Death-Bed	102	(1)
Over the Coffin	103	(1)
In the Moonlight	104	(3)
From MOMENTS OF VISION AND MISCELLANEOUS VERSES	107	(38)
"We Sat at the Window"	107	(1)
Afternoon Service at Mellstock	107	(1)
At the Word "Farewell"	108	(1)
Heredity	109	(1)
Near Lanivet, 1872	109	(2)
To the Moon	111	(1)
Timing Her	112	(2)
The Blinded Bird	114	(1)
"The Wind Blew Words"	115	(1)
To My Father's Violin	116	(1)
The Pedigree	117	(2)
Where They Lived	119	(1)
"Something Tapped"	120	(1)
The Oxen	120	(1)
The Photograph	121	(1)
An Anniversary	122	(1)
Transformations	123	(1)
The Last Signal	123	(1)
Great Things	124	(1)
At Middle-Field Gate in February	125	(1)
On Sturminster Foot-Bridge	126	(1)
Old Furniture	126	(2)
A Thought in Two Moods	128	(1)
Logs on the Hearth	128	(1)
The Caged Goldfinch	129	(1)
The Ballet	129	(1)
The Five Students	130	(1)
During Wind and Rain	131	(1)
He Prefers Her Earthly	132	(1)
A Backward Spring	133	(1)
"Who's in the Next Room?"	133	(1)
At a Country Fair	134	(1)
Jubilate	135	(1)
Midnight on the Great Western	136	(1)
The Shadow on the Stone	137	(1)
In the Garden	138	(1)
An Upbraiding	138	(1)
The Choirmaster's Burial	139	(2)
In Time of "The Breaking of Nations"	141	(1)
Afterwards	142	(3)
From LATE LYRICS AND EARLIER	145	(24)
Weathers	145	(1)
The Garden Seat	145	(1)
"According to the Mighty Working"	146	(1)
Going and Staying	147	(1)
The Contretemps	148	(2)
A Night in November	150	(1)
The Fallow Deer at the Lonely House	150	(1)
On the Tune Called the Old-Hundred-and-Fourth	151	(1)
Voices from Things Growing in a Churchyard	152	(2)
A Two-Years' Idyll	154	(1)
Fetching Her	155	(1)
A Procession of Dead Days	156	(1)
In the Small Hours	157	(1)
The Dream Is--Which?	158	(1)
Lonely Days	159	(1)
The Marble Tablet	160	(1)
The Master and the Leaves	161	(1)
Last Words to a Dumb Friend	162	(2)
An Ancient to Ancients	164	(5)
From HUMAN SHOWS, FAR PHANTASIES, SONGS AND TRIFLES	169	(22)
Waiting Both	169	(1)
A Bird-Scene at a Rural Dwelling	169	(1)
Coming Up Oxford Street: Evening	170	(1)
When Dead	170	(1)
Ten Years Since	171	(1)
Life and Death at Sunrise	172	(1)
A Sheep Fair	173	(1)
The Calf	174	(1)
Snow in the Suburbs	175	(1)
Ice on the Highway	176	(1)
No Buyers	176	(1)
One Who Married Above Him	177	(2)
Last Love-Word	179	(1)
Nobody Comes	180	(1)
When Oats Were Reaped	180	(1)
The Harbour Bridge	181	(1)
The Missed Train	182	(1)
Retty's Phases	183	(1)
The Sundial on a Wet Day	184	(1)
Shortening Days at the Homestead	185	(1)
A Hurried Meeting	186	(2)
A Leaving	188	(3)
From WINTER WORDS IN VARIOUS MOODS AND METRES	191	(6)
Proud Songsters	191	(1)
"I Am the One"	191	(1)
Expectation and Experience	192	(1)
Throwing a Tree	193	(1)
Lying Awake	194	(1)
Henley Regatta	194	(1)
"A Gentleman's Second-Hand Suit"	195	(1)
A Forgotten Miniature	196	(1)
Appendix: Hardy's Notes and Remarks	197	(8)
Notes	205	(40)
Index of Titles and First Lines	245