Works of Thomas Hardy discussion

Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they have fled.

Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day….
But wasted—wasted, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imagined one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done,
Will be mine alway?

This poem seemed fitting for a site dedicated to reading. Sunlight on a bookcase is always a nice image. One of my cats enjoys rolling around in the sun next to the bookcase as the light pushes along the carpet in the morning.

This poem seems to say — perhaps — that reading can create the imagined. And this is not an idle thing, but time spent well.

I like how the shadows from the apple tree fall on various objects in the room as the sun moves and the day progresses. When there is no more daylight, the narrator wonders if he has wasted another day. Since he mentions a page, he could be reading or writing, either of which uses imagination and engages the mind. While the poem is about one day, it could also represent the passage of time in general.

Nice choice, John!

I loved this poem, John! It has such a dream-like quality, and is a fitting follow-up to the nostalgia of "Old Furniture".

I wonder if it was written at this time of year. "Boiling ball" is a strong image, and seems to indicate full, very hot sun in a cloudless sky. And was it written late in his career, to be so contemplative? If so the bookcase might well be one at Max Gate 😊 I wonder which room ...

"This poem seems to say — perhaps — that reading can create the imagined ..."

Oh I like this thought about the subtext too, John. Great choice, thank you!

This is one of the few poems by Hardy — at least that I can recall — where the title is really the first line.

I really enjoyed this poem as well. And I immediately thought of reading and bookcases. Because I often look through the books on my bookcase, thinking what should I read next? Should I begin a new series, etc.?

John wrote: "This is one of the few poems by Hardy — at least that I can recall — where the title is really the first line."

Yes, I thought that too - and wondered could I be wrong. Thank you, John, for confirming my thought. Without "the sun on the bookcase" as the first line, the stanzas are uneven, which doesn't feel like something Hardy would do.

I don't think I've ever seen the sun referred to as "the boiling ball". I love that image. As Jean says, it does bring to mind a hot summer sun.

Lovely poem. Thank you John

Bridget wrote: "John wrote: "This is one of the few poems by Hardy — at least that I can recall — where the title is really the first line."

Yes, I thought that too - and wondered could I be wrong. Thank you, Joh..."

Interestingly enough, with the title, it becomes a fourteen line poem broken into two stanzas of seven lines. Yet the first line is a “island” because I am not seeing a rhyme for bookcase, which is unusual.

I know that Hardy worked in so many forms. He enjoyed the challenge, I think, of poetic creation within so many established forms. And suffice to say, this one seems more of his own making.

John, I see other sources online include another line at the beginning of the first stanza. Maybe your source left the first line off so it looks like the title should be the first line.

Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they have fled.

The imagery of "the cauldron of the sun" ties in with "the boiling ball," giving the impression of intense heat.

Connie wrote: "John, I see other sources online include another line at the beginning of the first stanza. Maybe your source left the first line off so it looks like the title should be the first line.

Once more..."

Thank you, Connie, for solving this.

Oh, I really like "cauldron of the sun". What a wonderful image. The sun as a vessel to hold the wine which smears the bookcase. It makes the sunlight more tangible.

Lesson learned about finding poems on the internet for posting. Always compare the one you post with the one in your book. I have the Palgrave Edition of Hardy’s Collected Poems. I just need to cross reference with my book for any future poems.

August is ending. I wish I knew where the summer went. It is quite muggy here in North Carolina.

For anyone who enjoys Hardy’s poems, I recommend reading the American poet A.E. Stallings. She studied Classics at the University of Georgia and now lives in Greece. She is a formalist poet who, like Hardy, works in various traditional forms using rhyme and meter. She has a superbly light touch, wit, and a sharp eye for nature’s doings.

This Afterlife: Selected Poems

I rarely read any poetry but am so glad I looked at this discussion & also the previous poem “Old furniture”. The poems, especially with the discussion points, are beautiful.

Tr1sha wrote: "I rarely read any poetry but am so glad I looked at this discussion & also the previous poem “Old furniture”. The poems, especially with the discussion points, are beautiful."

Glad you enjoyed, Tr1sha. Any of the various Selected Poems of Hardy are a good way to spend time with his work. I would recommend this one, which has an introduction and selections by Claire Tomalin:

Poems of Thomas Hardy

Thank you John.

I'm so glad you found these two poems, Tr1sha. John does such a fantastic job leading them for us. You can find all the poems we've discussed from our home page. Or you can also use this link:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Thank you, John & Bridget.

John, I looked at the book you recommended & have just downloaded a copy. I hope that the connection with the biography will help in understanding the background to the poems. Thanks for your advice.

Do please add your thoughts to some of the individual poem threads as you go as well, Tr1sha! Bridget has linked to the alphabetical list of them, and each one has its own separate link there.

I have just counted our individual threads, as we have looked at a whopping 64 in depth now, led by various members 😊

Thank you, Jean.

I always look forward to seeing new comments there. John and others have chosen some very special poems for us 😊

When I read this poem recently, for the first time, I took it a bit differently than some who commented earlier. (Note: my edition includes the short superscription just below the title, "Student's Love-Song: 1870.") To be sure, the student narrator mentions his bookcase and the open "page" (probably of a textbook, or required reading), along with his bed, as objects in the room that first the sunlight and then the shadows fall on. But he didn't spend the day reading, or writing. As he says in the last four lines, he spent it picturing his absent future wife, beyond the distant hills, who will "anon" always be his. (And he reckons that as time well spent. :-) )

There seem to be at least 3 (equally valid) ways of interpreting this lovely poem (one of my favourites ... ) which is one of the great things about poetry, I think.

Thanks for the extra superscription, Werner.

No problem, Jean! (Those are fairly frequent in this edition.)