A Journey into Thomas Hardy's Poetry [antikvár]

HARDY'S WORLD: Inexplicable Relations I recently met a Modern Languages student who through his leisure reading had become hooked on Hardy's poetry. It spilled out in most of his conversations because he could not help it. The poem that at that stage was never far from his mind, and which he thought was one of the finest poems ever written, was "I Look into my Glass". I was moved by this, because although I think this too, I was almost surprised that a man in his early twenties could share the feelings of a man nearer sixty. (Philip Larkin also thought Hardy was not a young person's poet; yet he too discovered Hardy's poems when he was a young man.) This is the poem. I LOOK INTO MY GLASS I look into my glass. And view my wasting skin. And say, "Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin!" For then, I, undistrest By hearts grown cold to me. Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity. But Time, to make me grieve. Part steals, lets part abide, And shakes this fragile frame at eve With throbbings of noontide. We must, I think, be stirred by this poem, even at a first reading. Yet in many ways it could seem unpromising. The first stanza is [1]