Hardy the Poet

In the recent New Yorker there is an article about Thomas Hardy.  This poem, "To Sincerity," referred to in the article, unexpectedly stuck me.  So nice and compact, yet bursting with energy and thought.  I've never read any Hardy poetry before, only his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge in high school.  I going to pick up his poems and delve.

Life may be sad past saying,
Its greens for ever graying,
Its faiths to dust decaying;

And youth may have foreknown it,
And riper seasons shown it,
But custom cries: "Disown it:

"Say ye rejoice, though greiving,
Believe, while unbelieving,
Behold, without perceiving!"

Comments

[DW]

Thanks for sharing this poem. It reminds me of Crooks' philosophy and it was good to remember that philosophy.
I need to call him!