92 PA RT O N E
Hardy’s weather and terrain didn’t fill notebooks of minute detail, as with
Gerard Manley Hopkins. Chance and change in human affairs fascinated him
more than the curve of a bluebell or watercourse. Nature looms and cuts into our
lives. In one poem it literally undercuts a family’s doings, as the title bodes.
“During Wind and Rain” deals with youthful Emma’s happy, talented
family.
They sing their dearest songs—
He, she, all of them—yea,
Treble and tenor and bass,
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss—
Elders and juniors—aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white storm-birds wing across!
They are blithely breakfasting all—
Men and maidens—yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ript from the wall.
They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them—aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the rain-drop ploughs.Emma’s musical, convivial, privileged family is given lucid, easygoing verse.
Nothing darkens the storytelling... until each stanza’s ominous dots. Ellipsis
marks something left out or leaving off. We ’re not told what, but it ruptures the
fable, as his speech mutates from domestic idiom to classical lament.
“Ah, no; the years O!” Refrains in a ballad resound deeper than its narrative
stanzas. Like a Greek chorus, they distill what ’s just been told or take it askew.
Usually they close each stanza, so Hardy could have left off with “Ah, no; the