The Wessex

_______ / \ / WESSEX \ / ~~~~~ \ / \_ _/ \ | / \ / \ | | | -o- | | "I am the family face; | \ / \ / | flesh perishes, I live on" \ / \ / \ / \ / "~~~~~~~~~" THOMAS HARDY 1840-1928

The Wessex

The Poetry

Hardy considered himself primarily a poet, though fame came through his novels. After abandoning fiction in 1895, he published over nine hundred poems in eight volumes, plus his epic verse drama The Dynasts. Many consider his poems of 1912-13, written after Emma's death, his finest work.

The Darkling Thrush

1900

Written at the turn of the century, this poem finds hope in a thrush's song amid winter desolation—an 'aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small' casting its soul upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings / Of such ecstatic sound / Was written on terrestrial things / Afar or nigh around

Neutral Tones

1867

A stark memory of love gone cold, set by a winter pond. The poem's bleached imagery—white sun, gray leaves, grin of bitterness—became Hardy's signature palette.

We stood by a pond that winter day, / And the sun was white, as though chidden of God

The Ruined Maid

1866

A wickedly ironic dialogue between two women: one 'ruined' by society's standards yet living well, the other respectable but exhausted by labor.

'O didn't you know I'd been ruined?' said she

The Voice

1912

Written after his first wife Emma's death, a haunted poem where Hardy hears or imagines her calling from the past.

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me

During Wind and Rain

1917

Four stanzas of remembered happiness, each ending with time's destruction—rain, leaves, storm, years.

Ah, no; the years, the years

The Convergence of the Twain

1912

On the Titanic disaster: the ship and iceberg as destined to meet, shaped by the Immanent Will.

And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres

Afterwards

1917

Hardy imagines his death and wonders if neighbors will remember him watching the hawk, the hedgehog, the nocturnal sky.

Will the neighbours say, 'He was a man who used to notice such things'?

The Oxen

1915

A Christmas Eve memory of the legend that cattle kneel at midnight—childhood belief meeting adult doubt.

'Now they are all on their knees,' / An elder said as we sat in a flock

In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'

1915

Written during World War I: while empires collapse, an old man harrowing, lovers walking, will outlast all war's story.

Yonder a maid and her wight / Come whispering by: / War's annals will cloud into night / Ere their story die

A Church Romance

1906

His parents' meeting at the parish church, his mother watching his father play the bass viol in the gallery.

Thus their hearts' bond began, in due time signed

Hap

1866

An early poem questioning divine justice—better random chance than a god who deliberately tortures.

Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain

I Look Into My Glass

1898

Aging Hardy wishes his heart would shrink to match his withered face.

But Time, to make me grieve, / Part steals, lets part abide

Snow in the Suburbs

1925

A precise, beautiful observation of snow falling in town—cat, sparrow, gate.

Every branch big with it, / Bent every twig with it

At Castle Boterel

1913

Returning to where he and Emma once walked, Hardy sees time layered on the landscape.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of / Matters not much, nor to what it led

Wessex Heights

1896

Hardy's retreat to high places where he can be 'where I was before my birth, and after death may be'.

There are some heights in Wessex, shaped as if by a kindly hand

The Poetry

Poetry Collections