Brief Background, Continued from the information on top

I have really enjoyed reading Hardy's works and I have found his style quite interesting. He writes about many different subjects in the poems that I have posted and to each he observes from a naturalistic lens, a fact of his poetic style and personality. He was also born into and lived in the European Romantic period in which nature and its beauty were emphasized. In the video, it makes mention of Wessex, England, the place where Hardy called home. Ironically there is no Wessex, England, it is just a fictional place from old fairytales that Hardy, in a very Romantic mindset, liked to fantasize about his living in. His poetic volumes are as followed, some were published post mortem:


Collected Poems (1932)
Moments of Vision (1917)
Satires of Circumstance (1914)
The Dynasts (1908)
Time's Laughingstocks (1909)
Wessex Poems (1898)
Winter Words in Various Moods and Meters (1928)


A particularly informative biographical link can be found here, though I covered most of the main points of his life in my brief outline:
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/bio/hardy.htm

The Convergence of the Twain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas Hardy's Wessex

At Castle Boterel- Feel Free to Leave Comments

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
   And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
   And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
      Distinctly yet

Myself and a girlish form benighted
   In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
   To ease the sturdy pony's load
      When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
   Matters not much, nor to what it led,—
Something that life will not be balked of
   Without rude reason till hope is dead,
      And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever
   A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill's story? To one mind never,
   Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
      By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road's steep border,
   And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth's long order;
   But what they record in colour and cast
      Is—that we two passed.

And to me, though Time's unflinching rigour,
   In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
   Remains on the slope, as when that night
      Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
   I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
   And I shall traverse old love's domain
      Never again

Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave?

"Ah, are you digging on my grave,
            My loved one? — planting rue?"
— "No: yesterday he went to wed
One of the brightest wealth has bred.
'It cannot hurt her now,' he said,
            'That I should not be true.'"

"Then who is digging on my grave,
            My nearest dearest kin?"
— "Ah, no: they sit and think, 'What use!
What good will planting flowers produce?
No tendance of her mound can loose
            Her spirit from Death's gin.'"

"But someone digs upon my grave?
            My enemy? — prodding sly?"
— "Nay: when she heard you had passed the Gate
That shuts on all flesh soon or late,
She thought you no more worth her hate,
            And cares not where you lie.

"Then, who is digging on my grave?
            Say — since I have not guessed!"
— "O it is I, my mistress dear,
Your little dog , who still lives near,
And much I hope my movements here
            Have not disturbed your rest?"

"Ah yes! You dig upon my grave…
            Why flashed it not to me
That one true heart was left behind!
What feeling do we ever find
To equal among human kind
            A dog's fidelity!"

"Mistress, I dug upon your grave
            To bury a bone, in case
I should be hungry near this spot
When passing on my daily trot.
I am sorry, but I quite forgot
            It was your resting place."

Channel Firing

That night your great guns, unawares,

Shook all our coffins as we lay,

And broke the chancel window-squares,

We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome

Arose the howl of wakened hounds:

The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,

The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;

It’s gunnery practice out at sea

Just as before you went below;

The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make

Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters

They do no more for Christés sake

Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour

For some of them’s a blessed thing,

For if it were they’d have to scour

Hell’s floor for so much threatening....

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when

I blow the trumpet (if indeed

I ever do; for you are men,

And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,

Will the world ever saner be,”

Said one, “than when He sent us under

In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.

“Instead of preaching forty year,”

My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,

“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,

Roaring their readiness to avenge,

As far inland as Stourton Tower,

And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

The Ruined Maid

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

-"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theäs oon,' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
"My dear a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.