Here’s a little poem by Thomas Hardy. No one did bitter better.
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published John and Jane
IHe sees the world as a boisterous placeWhere all things bear a laughing face,And humorous scenes go hourly on,Does John.
IIThey find the world a pleasant placeWhere all is ecstasy and grace,Where a light has risen that cannot wane,Do John and Jane.
IIIThey see as a palace their cottage place,Containing a pearl of the human race,A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,Do John and Jane with a baby-child.
IVThey rate the world as a gruesome place,Where fair looks fade to a skull’s grimace, -As a pilgrimage they would fain get done -Do John and Jane with their worthless son.
Hardy (1840-1928) published lots of poems, 947 in my “Complete” edition (though Complete is never complete). Poetry was his passion; fiction his paycheck. The story goes he turned away from novels after his final one, Jude the Obscure, was decried in some quarters for its relentless grimness. I think that’s hooey. Hardy had made enough money writing fiction so he could return to his true love. If you love poetry, prose is weak tea. We need prose – to convey information – but poems convey the soul with an intensity unavailable to prose. Prose is a pull-cart, poetry a rocket.
Poetry, though, is hard to read, hard to make pay, and worst of all, undependable to produce. A prose-producer can count on a steady output, maybe not their best every day but good enough. Prosing is, to that degree, a craft. Poetry is magic. Having written one or ten pleasing poems, a poet has no idea if they’ll tease another from the clouds. The best poets – I’m speaking of lyric poetry here; epic or didactic poetry were less fickle, but nobody reads them now – bequeath to posterity a handful of “hits” if they’re fortunate – and drawerfuls of failures. A poem that doesn’t work – which means, for most, most – is a turd, not just unwelcome, but repugnant. My compendium of deplorables brims. If I depended for my self-worth on making poems I liked, I’d shoot myself. Hence these shuffling paragraphs.
Hardy has a hit rate bar none. He was not just great he was great a lot. I record my response to poems with checks and stars. Double stars are my apex. The greatest of the great – Frost, say, or T.S. Eliot – win a few dozen stars. Hardy’s fat volume is a galaxy. Only Emily Dickinson, I think, vies in victories.
Why isn’t Hardy, in reputation, a permanent Parnassus-topper, along with Chaucer, Spenser, Donne, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Keats, Blake, Browning, Tennyson, Frost and Eliot? (For mid-twentieth century onward, the list’s still forming.) Poets praise Hardy – it’s impossible not to – but he’s less often assigned.
My guess is gloom’s the problem. Hardy’s morose. Sadness is inevitable, fate’s a sadist, all is loss. Folks in Hardy who don’t kill themselves sigh for suicide. Don’t be fooled by gladness, friend, you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’, like John and Jane in the poem above. You may think things are going great, but life has it in for you.
The artistry of the foregoing quatrains is unmistakable. No poet used rhyme and rhythm more variously to such surprising effect. But the moral of the story? Ouch. Poor John and Jane. Poor Hardy. Poor us.
Details are murky but Hardy seems to have been spurned by an early love. The loss broke his heart. Broken hearts may never mend. I love Hardy. You will too. But beware O.D.-ing. Gloom is contagious.