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10.2: Hap

  • Page ID
    3177
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    Thomas Hardy

    [1]

    If but some vengeful god would call to me
    From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
    Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
    That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

    Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
    Steeled by the sense of ire[2] unmerited;
    Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
    Had willed and meted[3] me the tears I shed.

    But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
    And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
    —Crass Casualty[4] obstructs the sun and rain,
    And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
    These purblind Doomsters[5] had as readily strown
    Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

    — 1898

    Contributors and Attributions


    1. Chance, happenstance. ↵
    2. Anger, wrath. ↵
    3. Given. ↵
    4. Chance.
    5. Partly blind and obtuse judges. ↵

    10.2: Hap is shared under a CC BY license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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