Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems

392 Pages·2009·3.173 MB·English

by  Tim Armstrong

THOMAS HARDY
Selected Poems
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LONGMAN ANNOTATED TEXTS
GENERAL EDITORS
Charlotte Brewer, Hertford College, Oxford
H.R. Woudhuysen, University College London
Daniel Karlin, University of Sheffield
PUBLISHED TITLES
Lyrical Ballads Michael Mason
Women’s Writing in Middle English Alexandra Barratt
William Blake: Selected Poems David Fuller
King Lear: A Parallel Text Edition René Weis
Women Writers in Renaissance England Randall Martin
Chaucer’s Dream Poetry Helen Philips and Nick Havely
Alexander Pope: The Dunciad and Four Books Valerie Rumbold
Victorian Women Poets Virginia Blain
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THOMAS HARDY
Selected Poems
Edited by
TIM ARMSTRONG
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
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First published 1993 by Pearson Education Limited

Second edition published 2009
Published 2014 by Routledge
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ISBN 13: 978-1-4082-0430-6 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hardy, Thomas, 1840–1928.
[Poems. Selections]
Thomas Hardy : selected poems / edited by Tim Armstrong. — Rev. ed.
p. cm. — (Longman annotated texts)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4082-0430-6 (pbk.)
I. Armstrong, Tim, 1956– II. Title.
PR4741.A75 2009
821′.8—dc22
2009000631
Set in 9/12pt Stone Serif by 35
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements xi
List of abbreviations xii
Chronology xiv
Introduction 1
Hardy’s ‘second’ career 1
Turning to poetry 1
Poetry as posthumous vision 3
Necessity and free will 5
Typology and the pattern of a life 8
Sequences and patterns 11
God and history 13
Hardy and the dead 15
The ‘Poems of 1912–13’ 17
Restoration and the past 21
Wessex 22
Hardy’s style 24
The Gothic art-principle 24
Words 26
Prosody 28
Hardy and literary tradition 32
Selecting Hardy 34
A note on the annotations 35
A note on the text 36
The Poems 37
From Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898) 39
1 The Temporary the All 40
2 Hap 42
3 Neutral Tones 43
4 The Peasant’s Confession 45
5 A Sign-Seeker 51
6 Friends Beyond 53
7 Thoughts of Phena 56
8 Nature’s Questioning 57
9 In a Eweleaze near Weatherbury 59
10 ‘I look into my glass’ 60
v
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CONTENTS
From Poems of the Past and the Present (1901) 62
11 V.R. 1819–1901 63
12 Drummer Hodge 64
13 The Souls of the Slain 66
14 Rome: Building a New Street in the Ancient Quarter 70
15 Rome: At the Pyramid of Cestius near the Graves of Shelley and Keats 71
16 A Commonplace Day 73
17 To an Unborn Pauper Child 74
18 Her Reproach 76
19 His Immortality 77
20 Winter in Durnover Field 78
21 The Darkling Thrush 79
22 The Respectable Burgher on ‘The Higher Criticism’ 81
23 The Self-Unseeing 83
24 In Tenebris I 84
25 In Tenebris II 86
26 In Tenebris III 88
27 Tess’s Lament 89
28 Sapphic Fragment 91
29 ’ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩι ΘΕΩι 92
From Time’s Laughingstocks and Other Verses (1909) 94
30 The Revisitation 95
31 A Trampwoman’s Tragedy 101
32 In the Mind’s Eye 106
33 He Abjures Love 107
34 Let Me Enjoy 109
35 Julie-Jane 110
36 The Dead Quire 111
37 Night in the Old Home 117
38 After the Last Breath 118
39 One We Knew 119
40 George Meredith, 1828–1909 121
41 Yell’ham Wood’s Story 122
42 A Young Man’s Epigram on Existence 123
From Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries (1914) 124
43 In Front of the Landscape 124
44 Channel Firing 128
45 The Convergence of the Twain 129
46 ‘When I set out for Lyonnesse’ 133
47 Wessex Heights 134
48 A Singer Asleep 136
49 Self-Unconscious 139
50 Under the Waterfall 141
vi
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CONTENTS
‘Poems of 1912–13’ 143
51 The Going 144
52 Your Last Drive 146
53 The Walk 147
54 Rain on a Grave 148
55 ‘I found her out there’ 150
56 Without Ceremony 151
57 Lament 152
58 The Haunter 154
59 The Voice 155
60 His Visitor 157
61 A Circular 158
62 A Dream or No 159
63 After a Journey 160
64 A Death-Day Recalled 162
65 Beeny Cliff 163
66 At Castle Boterel 164
67 Places 166
68 The Phantom Horsewoman 168
69 The Spell of the Rose 170
70 St Launce’s Revisited 171
71 Where the Picnic Was 173
72 The Obliterate Tomb 174
73 The Workbox 179
74 Exeunt Omnes 181
75 A Poet 182
76 In the Cemetery 183
From Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Verses (1917) 185
77 Moments of Vision 185
78 The Voice of Things 186
79 Apostrophe to an Old Psalm Tune 187
80 At the Word ‘Farewell’ 189
81 Heredity 190
82 Near Lanivet, 1872 191
83 Copying Architecture in an Old Minster 192
84 To Shakespeare 194
85 Quid Hic Agis? 196
86 On a Midsummer Eve 199
87 The Blinded Bird 200
88 The Statue of Liberty 201
89 The Change 203
90 Lines to a Movement in Mozart’s E-Flat Symphony 205
91 The Pedigree 206
92 His Heart: A Woman’s Dream 209
vii
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CONTENTS
93 The Oxen 210
94 The Photograph 211
95 The Last Signal 212
96 The Figure in the Scene 213
97 Overlooking the River Stour 214
98 The Musical Box 216
99 Old Furniture 217
100 The Five Students 219
101 The Wind’s Prophecy 220
102 During Wind and Rain 222
103 A Backward Spring 224
104 He Revisits His First School 225
105 ‘I thought, my Heart’ 226
106 The Shadow on the Stone 228
107 ‘For Life I had never cared greatly’ 229
108 The Pity of It 230
109 In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’ 232
110 A New Year’s Eve in War Time 233
111 ‘I looked up from my writing’ 235
112 Afterwards 236
From Late Lyrics and Earlier (1922) 238
113 Weathers 246
114 ‘According to the Mighty Working’ 247
115 The Contretemps 248
116 ‘And There Was a Great Calm’ 250
117 The Selfsame Song 252
118 At Lulworth Cove a Century Back 253
119 The Collector Cleans His Picture 254
120 On the Tune Called the Old-Hundred-and-Fourth 256
121 Voices from Things Growing in a Churchyard 257
122 After a Romantic Day 260
123 In the Small Hours 261
124 Last Words to a Dumb Friend 262
125 A Drizzling Easter Morning 263
126 ‘I was the midmost’ 264
127 The Inscription 265
128 The Whitewashed Wall 269
129 After Reading Psalms XXXIX, XL, etc. 270
130 Surview 271
From Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925) 273
131 Waiting Both 273
132 A Bird-Scene at a Rural Dwelling 274
133 In a Former Resort after Many Years 275
134 A Cathedral Façade at Midnight 276
viii
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CONTENTS
135 The Monument-Maker 277
136 The Later Autumn 278
137 An East-End Curate 279
138 Sine Prole 280
139 A Sheep Fair 281
140 Snow in the Suburbs 282
141 A Light Snow-Fall after Frost 284
142 Music in a Snowy Street 285
143 In Sherborne Abbey 286
144 The Mock Wife 288
145 ‘Not only I’ 289
146 Her Haunting-Ground 291
147 Days to Recollect 291
148 This Summer and Last 292
149 ‘Nothing matters much’ 293
150 Before My Friend Arrived 294
151 The Bird-Catcher’s Boy 295
152 Song to an Old Burden 298
153 ‘Why do I?’ 299
From Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928) 301
154 The New Dawn’s Business 303
155 Proud Songsters 304
156 The Prophetess 304
157 A Wish for Unconsciousness 305
158 The Love-Letters 306
159 Throwing a Tree 307
160 Lying Awake 308
161 Childhood Among the Ferns 309
162 A Poet’s Thought 310
163 ‘I watched a blackbird’ 311
164 A Nightmare, and the Next Thing 311
165 So Various 313
166 An Evening in Galilee 315
167 We Field-women 317
168 He Never Expected Much 318
169 Standing by the Mantelpiece 319
170 Our Old Friend Dualism 320
171 Drinking Song 321
172 The Aged Newspaper Soliloquizes 325
173 Christmas: 1924 325
174 The Boy’s Dream 326
175 Family Portraits 327
176 Christmas in the Elgin Room 329
177 ‘We are getting to the end’ 331
178 He Resolves to Say No More 332
ix
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