lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

"THENINETIES"was a strange impression that a reader, familiar withHardy's novels, derived from turning over the pagesof this unexpected volume. This must be, onethought, an experiment in a form not quite familiarto the writer, but that was contradicted by the dates.One can recall reading one poem after another, wonderingat the awkward movement of the verse in theballads, the strange use of certain words as by one whowas more intent upon what he had to say than disposedto let the words dictate their own usage:Along through the Stour-bordered ForumWhere Legions had wayfared,And where the slow river-face glassesIts green canopy,And by Weatherby Castle, and thencefromThrough Casterbridge held IStill on, to entomb her my mindsightSaw stretched pallidly.One was not used to such rhythms then, though Isuppose they are common enough to-day. And thenone came upon Drummer Hodge and one thrilled, forhere was an effect not sentimental but authenticallyimaginative; and so other lyrics asserted themselves,Friends Beyond, In a Wood, The Impercipient, andothers including some of the ballads; and all thatfollowed the appearance of the first volume has onlydeepened without much altering the first impression.One reads always with a certain latent protest againstthese somewhat laboured rhythms, the occasionallyawkward, even ugly wordsWhere once she domiciled,and yet lyric after lyric justifies itself and lingers in155