The First of a Hundred Reasons to Love Thomas Hardy as a Poet.

The following poem is my favourite written by the great Thomas Hardy. A Dorset man born and bred, Hardy’s poems, especially those dedicated to his first wife Emma, and his novels, such as Far From The Madding Crowd, and Under The Greenwood Tree, led to him becoming an acclaimed and hugely successful author within his own lifetime. This poem is packed full of references to his native area, with the journey taken by the narrator easily traceable through the countryside of Somerset and Dorset.

The Trampwoman's Tradgey, Thomas Hardy, 1902. 

I

From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day,
The livelong day,
We beat afoot the northward way
We had travelled times before.
The sun-blaze burning on our backs,
Our shoulders sticking to our packs,
By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks
We skirted sad Sedge-Moor.

II

Full twenty miles we jaunted on,
We jaunted on, -
My fancy-man, and jeering John,
And Mother Lee, and I.
And, as the sun drew down to west,
We climbed the toilsome Poldon crest,
And saw, of landskip sights the best,
The inn that beamed thereby.

III

For months we had padded side by side,
Ay, side by side
Through the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,
And where the Parret ran.
We'd faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,
Had crossed the Yeo unhelped by bridge,
Been stung by every Marshwood midge,
I and my fancy-man.

IV

Lone inns we loved, my man and I,
My man and I;
"King's Stag," "Windwhistle" high and dry,
"The Horse" on Hintock Green,
The cosy house at Wynyard's Gap,
"The Hut" renowned on Bredy Knap,
And many another wayside tap
Where folk might sit unseen.

V

Now as we trudged--O deadly day,
O deadly day! -
I teased my fancy-man in play
And wanton idleness.
I walked alongside jeering John,
I laid his hand my waist upon;
I would not bend my glances on
My lover's dark distress.

VI

Thus Poldon top at last we won,
At last we won,
And gained the inn at sink of sun
Far-famed as "Marshal's Elm."
Beneath us figured tor and lea,
From Mendip to the western sea -
I doubt if finer sight there be
Within this royal realm.

VII

Inside the settle all a-row -
All four a-row
We sat, I next to John, to show
That he had wooed and won.
And then he took me on his knee,
And swore it was his turn to be
My favoured mate, and Mother Lee
Passed to my former one.

VIII

Then in a voice I had never heard,
I had never heard,
My only Love to me: "One word,
My lady, if you please!
Whose is the child you are like to bear? -
HIS? After all my months o' care?"
God knows 'twas not! But, O despair!
I nodded--still to tease.

IX

Then up he sprung, and with his knife -
And with his knife
He let out jeering Johnny's life,
Yes; there, at set of sun.
The slant ray through the window nigh
Gilded John's blood and glazing eye,
Ere scarcely Mother Lee and I
Knew that the deed was done.

X

The taverns tell the gloomy tale,
The gloomy tale,
How that at Ivel-chester jail
My Love, my sweetheart swung;
Though stained till now by no misdeed
Save one horse ta'en in time o' need;
(Blue Jimmy stole right many a steed
Ere his last fling he flung.)

XI

Thereaft I walked the world alone,
Alone, alone!
On his death-day I gave my groan
And dropt his dead-born child.
'Twas nigh the jail, beneath a tree,
None tending me; for Mother Lee
Had died at Glaston, leaving me
Unfriended on the wild.

XII

And in the night as I lay weak,
As I lay weak,
The leaves a-falling on my cheek,
The red moon low declined -
The ghost of him I'd die to kiss
Rose up and said: "Ah, tell me this!
Was the child mine, or was it his?
Speak, that I rest may find!"

XIII

O doubt not but I told him then,
I told him then,
That I had kept me from all men
Since we joined lips and swore.
Whereat he smiled, and thinned away
As the wind stirred to call up day . . .
- 'Tis past! And here alone I stray
Haunting the Western Moor.

This chilling tale of a woman and her travelling companions is typical of Hardy with a serious, melancholy conclusion, touched by the ethereal in the appearance of the woman’s dead lover. Hardy loved his local countryside and this poem is jammed to the rafters with references which go beyond simply describing the landscape. For example his use of ‘Poldon’ is significant, as it is a series of steep hills in Somerset, which would obviously cause the travelers some discomfort on their journey. Its appearance in stanza VI shows that the company’s hardships have only just begun.  Following this, ‘Gaston’ – where the unfortunate Mother Lee had died – is clearly a shortened form for the famous town of Glastonbury. Renowned in modern popular culture for its thriving (though arguably overpriced) festival, Glastonbury has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries, with the Tor, the double springs and the claim laid down by the monks of 1184 that King Arthur's bones had been found within the Abbey. This holds importance as the Tor is also known as Avalon, or the Isle of Apples, and is where the legendary king was supposedly taken before he died thus remaining until his country is in need of him once again.

Before even progressing into the poem the mood is set with Hardy’s beautiful alliteration of ‘skirted sad Sedge-Moor’ at first just his use of sad gives a feeling of foreboding but when one examines the history of the moor it becomes even more obviously ominous. Sedge-Moor, still named so today, was the site of the final battle of the English Civil War, resulting in a large loss of life. In this way it is clear that Hardy has used every place name to his advantage. Even if his readers are not aware of the words hidden context it does not take a huge amount of digging to discover why he has chosen certain towns and natural landmarks to focus upon. However, for those readers who do understand his reasoning’s the whole experience of reading this piece is heightened. The realisation that you have walked those roads, rowed down that river, driven across that moor, climbed those hills and shopped in those towns gives the whole poem a feeling of uneasy realism. Once you know those places of which he speaks it is difficult not to imagine the sorrowful story he describes playing itself out in front of you. This is a talent that Hardy possessed, the way he wrote may have shocked some of the Victorian audience but he was a man with get skill who knew how to fit reality into rhyme and allow his readers to explore situations they had likely never imagined.

I hope you enjoyed this masterpiece of a poem, and maybe picked out one or two more of the references. If you’re interested in finding out more about the places mentioned feel free to ask, I have spent a large amount of time in the area and hopefully could be of some assistance. Thank you for reading, Amyx