Thomas Hardy the Poet

Recently re-read Tess of the D’urbervilles (after not having read it since high school) and was amazed at not only how well he writes, but how much of a page-turner that book is. You can’t put the damn thing down, and that is totally not how I remember it from high school.

But he was also a poet (he came to it late – long after he became a successful novelist), and in a way I am more partial to his poetry than his novels.

Ezra Pound said, after reading Hardy’s poems: “Now there is clarity. There is the harvest of having written 20 novels first.”

The poem he wrote about the Titanic frankly just cannot be beat. I put that one in the extended entry. It gives me chills up my back every time I read it.

But here’s another beauty. It’s simple, no big revelation, no flowery language … just a moment described. He’s great at that.

A Thunderstorm in Town

She wore a new ‘terra-cotta’ dress,
And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,
Within the hansom’s dry recess,
Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless
We sat on, snug and warm.

Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain,
And the glass that had screened our forms before
Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:
I should have kissed her if the rain
Had lasted a minute more.

The Convergence of the Twain

I

In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II

Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III

Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV

Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V

Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: “What does this vaingloriousness down here?”. . .

VI

Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII

Prepared a sinister mate
For her — so gaily great —
A Shape of Ice, for the time fat and dissociate.

VIII

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX

Alien they seemed to be:
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history.

X

Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one August event,

XI

Till the Spinner of the Years
Said “Now!” And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

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9 Responses to Thomas Hardy the Poet

  1. Ken Hall says:

    “The Convergence of the Twain” is amazing. I had no idea. The first five stanzas are like watching Ballard’s films, only better.

  2. red says:

    Isn’t it phenomenal?

    This stanza is the one I find the most scary:

    And as the smart ship grew
    In stature, grace, and hue
    In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

    Shivers!!

  3. Jody Tresidder says:

    I’m pretty sure it was the second Mrs Thomas Hardy (i.e. Florence) who piggy-backed her husband’s fame by “submitting” somewhat excruciating verse to the local paper. The “submissions” inevitably got printed, out of deference to Thomas, but I’ve never forgotten the newspaper editor’s polite but agonized introductions to her frequent offerings.
    Gorgeous selections and thank you. Pity Thomas was not terribly pleasant, to put it mildly.

  4. red says:

    Jody – I had not heard that about his wife. I would love to read the “polite but agonized introductions”!! Ouch!

  5. peteb says:

    It’s a chilling poem, Sheila.. and Ken’s right.. it’s the opening at the grave-side, where “the sea-worm crawls”, (and wasn’t this written shortly after the sinking?) that sets it up for..

    “..grew the Iceberg too.”

  6. sadie says:

    I. Heart. Thomas. Hardy.

    Red, I have to thank you for blogging about actual literature so often…. it’s inspired me to revisit my bookshelves. Thanks;-)

  7. CW says:

    tess: ummmmmmmmmm.

  8. red says:

    CW – Exactly.

  9. Wes says:

    I think I like the thunderstorm one better. Perhaps the Titanic poem is what set the mood for all the other “man’s hubris vs. iceberg” sentiment to come later, but while well executed, it seems so, well, obvious — whereas the simple tenderness of the first poem you posted hits me right there.

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