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own their carved names the rain-drop
ploughs.” They’re not only dead and buried, but nature ’s eroding their very
names, their loving memory. Something less bleak than this, from Thomas Hardy
(1840–1928), might be preferred, but listen to its relentless pulse. Usually an
eight-syllable line has three or four accents. Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”:
’Twas brillig and the slithytoves
Didgyreandgimble in the wabe.W. B. Yeats:
Andliftyour tendereyelids, maid,
Andbroodonhopesandfears nomore.A. E. Housman:
Butoh,good Lord, theverseyou make,
Itgives achap thebel ly-ache.Hardy’s line bears seven stresses, driving nearly every syllable:
Down their carved names therain-drop ploughs.We ’ll come back to this landmark poem.
Thomas Hardy was born of yeoman stock, as they say, in southern England ’s
Dorset, a region his novels call Wessex, its medieval name. Those stories of
“sick leaves... storm-birds... rotten rose... rain-drop”
Nature Shadowing Thomas Hardy
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