TOP6-DES5
These Old Poems #6:
Thomas Hardy’s Afterwards
Copyright © by Dan Schneider, 7/14/02
A few years ago, in Harper’s magazine, revered doggerelist Donald Hall declared Thomas Hardy his favorite poet, the best poet in English in the last century, & the following poem as the greatest this language has yet produced. Go ahead, read it:
During Wind And Rain
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 ripped 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 raindrop plows.
You ask why
this typically trite TH poem would swell old Dismal Donny’s member? 1 word:
diphthong- which is basically smooshing together 2 vowel sounds to make 1: i.e.-
ou, or oi sounds. DH went rapt over the poem’s final words' sustained
diphthong- although it’s a borderline example of the term, at best. To you
& me the poem is borderline bathetic & larded with too many modifiers.
It’s not a bad poem, really- but the best in the English language? Remember,
this man spent 25 or more years in Academia, blissfully perverting countless
minds with such stupidity.
Listen, I
admire TH greatly. He is 1 of the least talented poets ever published- but,
DAMN, da boy was persistent & constantly innovated new forms. His material,
however, never went beyond death, regret, & clouds eternally hanging over
things real & not. He was 1 of the most Experimental poets ever- but, like
the modern equivalents of that term (think, oh, Michael Palmer) he was nearly
uniformly terrible. Still, there’s something greatly admirable (if not
Sisyphan) about the man.
Natheless,
let’s look at the poem in question. It has perhaps the worst 1st
line by any ‘name’ poet in English. Narratively, musically, dramatically,
image-wise, it is trite & woe-begotten. Read on- there are 19 more lines as
bad, or worse:
Afterwards
When the
Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad
green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to
notice such things"?
If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless
blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing
the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
"To him this must have been a
familiar sight.
If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels
furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures
should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them;
and now he is gone."
If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they
stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens
that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no
more,
"He was one who had an eye
for such mysteries"?
And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the
gloom,
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause
in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
"He hears it not now, but
used to notice such things"?
Has the word ‘overwrought’ ever been more apropos to a poem- EVER? In all its possible applications? I mean this poem is padded, larded with bad alliteration & assonance, & on & on. Obviously, reduction is the key to this redaction. Read this version & let’s get cracking.
Afterwards
When the
Present is behind me,
And May makes its leavings,
Delicate-filmed, will others see
I was one who noticed such things?
If I pass, during some warm night,
When hedgehogs grace the lawn,
Who may say, ‘He strove so their plight
Would have worth- but now all are
gone.’
And who will say, when now is dumb,
Paused from its
outrollings,
All will return, and these words come,
‘He was one who noticed such things?’
This version
has lost a lot of bulk, but not a whit of the real sentiment- although the
sentimentality has been neatly sloughed. The dull, repetitive, & superfluous
stanzas 2 & 4 are gone. They merely restated stanzas 1 & 3 more poorly.
The remaining 3 stanzas- 1,3, & 5 are the core-poem. The inelegant &
clunkily over-written & clichéd lines of the original have been replaced by
shorter lines which condense & heighten the poem out of its original bathos.
The title is adequate in either version, but the actual poem is markedly
improved.
Let’s
go stanza-by-stanza:
When the
Present is behind me,
And May makes its leavings,
Delicate-filmed, will others see
I was one who noticed such things?
This says everything the original stanza did- but adds in an activity to the month of May- its leavings can be departure of the manipulation of its spring leaves. Compare the 2 line 2s- really look at them. Is there any question my version is superior- especially given its concision:
-And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
- And May makes its leavings,
‘Delicate-filmed’
now refers to more than the clichéd metaphor of silk for the leaves- now, it
refers to the very nature of loss, itself. This version also ends its 1st
stanza within the speaker- not totally reflecting outward. This gives this
shorter poem a tension the longer, duller original lacks.
On to stanza
2:
If I pass, during some warm night,
When hedgehogs grace the lawn,
Who may say, ‘He strove so their plight
Would have worth- but now all are
gone.’
The original
stanza 2 added nothing to the poem. Its stanza 3 moves up to #2 here. The
speaker drifts back in to the present moment (we presume) of the poem. The
original stanza 3 meanwhile, is already at a point in the poem where the reader
is tiring, if not already having lost interest. & it does nothing to
re-awaken that interest:
If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels
furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures
should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."
See how
over-written this was? I mean, nights are nocturnal & black- right? Does
‘mothy’ add anything? No- it’s a filler syllabic choice. Moving 'warm' from
the line’s end also opens up a better rhyme choice 2 lines down. The word
‘grace’ after ‘hedgehogs’ adds all that the original last 2 lines did-
as far as the speaker’s attempts to invoke divinity & righteousness. &
aren’t my 2 last lines far superior, in all ways? The original stanza 4 is
also dropped in the re-write. So clichéd- & do we relly need the tired
invocation of the seasons as markers for the speaker’s life? That the poem
veers into the speaker’s afterdeath says that we are spanning a lifetime. The
mention of ‘winter’ is therefore superfluous. Let’s compare the 2
versions’ ends:
And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the
gloom,
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause
in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
"He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?
* * * * * * * *
And who will say, when now is dumb,
Paused from its
outrollings,
All will return, and these words come,
‘He was one who noticed such things?’
The
stanza’s 1st line are stark contrasts between the Victorian &
the modern. ‘Dumb’ is vastly superior & more duplicitous than
‘gloom’. The pause in line 2 now is far beyond the original’s meaning.
But, ‘outrollings’ is a great word choice from the original. The ‘all’
in line 3 now can refer to the hedgehogs or anything else in the poem- or all of
that. The rework’s rephrasing is both an improvement over the original’s
ending & a nice return, & rephrasing of its 1st stanza’s
hope of the speaker. It acts as almost as a confirmation. Almost, is the key.
To not
acknowledge the rewrite as superior is to buy in to the noxious myth that
Canonical writers were infallible & far above we mere mortals of the present
day. C’mon, even a quick glance at the rest of Cosmoetica will show that I,
& many other poets, tower above poor old TH. As for Donald Hall- who?
Final Score (0-100):
Thomas Hardy’s Afterwards: 68
TOP’s Afterwards: 90
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