greykit.poetry — Thomas Hardy

• 1912 [thomas-hardy] The Convergence of the Twain
  Satires of Circumstance

  Hardy's cold meditation on the Titanic and the iceberg, grown in shadowy distance as twin halves of one august event, until the Spinner of the Years said "Now!" and jarred two hemispheres.

  #elegy#disaster#fate#irony#1910s
• 1902 [thomas-hardy] The Darkling Thrush
  Poems of the Past and the Present

  On the last evening of the century, Hardy leans on a gate in a desolate frost-gray landscape when a frail old thrush flings out a full-hearted evensong — suggesting some blessed hope the poet cannot share.

  #lyric#nature#hope#winter#century#1900s
• 1898 [thomas-hardy] Neutral Tones
  Wessex Poems and Other Verses

  By a winter pond under a white, chidden sun, Hardy distills the death of a love into a few grey images — the starving sod, the deadest smile, the God-curst sun — that return to him whenever love proves a deceiver.

  #love#loss#winter#disillusion#1890s