Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Thomas Hardy, the son of a stonemason, was born in Dorset, England, on June 2, 1840. He trained as an architect and worked in London and Dorset for ten years. Hardy began his writing career as a novelist, publishing Desperate Remedies in 1871, and was soon successful enough to leave the field of architecture for writing. His novels Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) andJude the Obscure (1895), which are considered literary classics today, received negative reviews upon publication and Hardy was criticized for being too pessimistic and preoccupied with sex. He left fiction writing for poetry, and published eight collections, including Wessex Poems (1898) and Satires of Circumstance (1912).[1]

• The Poetry Foundation

• Poets.org

• The Victorian Web

• Hardy's works

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

• Polanski's Tess

   

• TV Movie

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126100/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_14

 

"The Impercipient" by Thomas Hardy

The Impercipient

Thomas Hardy

THAT from this bright believing band
An outcast I should be,
That faiths by which my comrades stand
Seem fantasies to me,
And mirage-mists their Shining Land,	5
Is a drear destiny.
Why thus my soul should be consigned
To infelicity,
Why always I must feel as blind
To sights my brethren see,	10
Why joys they’ve found I cannot find,
Abides a mystery.
Since heart of mine knows not that ease
Which they know; since it be
That He who breathes All’s Well to these	15
Breathes no All’s Well to me,
My lack might move their sympathies
And Christian charity!
I am like a gazer who should mark
An inland company	20
Standing upfingered, with, “Hark! hark!
The glorious distant sea!”
And feel, “Alas, ’tis but yon dark
And wind-swept pine to me!”
Yet I would bear my shortcomings	25
With meet tranquillity,
But for the charge that blessed things
I’d liefer have unbe.
O, doth a bird deprived of wings
Go earth-bound wilfully!     .      .      .      .	30
Enough. As yet disquiet clings
About us. Rest shall we.

Source: http://www.bartleby.com/121/43.html

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

Biographies:

• Poetry Foundation
• Poets.org
• The Victorian Web

To read Hardy's works, click here.