Hardy's Hap

Hap- Thomas Hardy

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorry 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 unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

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

Hardy unveils his determinism in this poem as a refreshing start to the Twentieth Century. This poem seems to take the shape of an altered sonnet. Divided into the three stanza, the poem has a scientific feel due to the start of each stanza sounding like an equation: “if”, “then”, “but not so”. The first two stanzas are very formulated in an abab rhyme scheme and are very direct. This structure seems to contradict the theme of the poem quite nicely by contrasting form versus the random. The third stanza, however, feels much more colloquial, and is more abstract and personal than the first two stanzas. Hardy uses a caesura, an ellipses, and a rhetorical question to add to the scepticism contained in his argument, and to make the stanza feel more conversational that the other two.

The first stanza creates an imaginary being by arguing that IF there was a god to blame for wrongs against him, it would be a vengeful god that rejoices in pain, rather than the opposing notion of a benevolent god. In this poem, Hardy rejects the religious standard of God, and imagines one who delights in loss and suffering. It seems to pervert the previous notion of a divine god by imagining one who states “know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy”. By using “if”, Hardy seems to be wishing for such a god, for reasons explained in the following stanzas.

In stanza two, Hardy describes the presence of this imagined vengeful god as a relief by ‘knowing’ the truth as to why he is allotted pain. It is because of this ‘knowing’ that Hardy would be able to “bear it, clench myself, and die”… “half-eased”. His mention of the unmerited seems in reference to religion again, as it is believed that God’s mercy is unmerited to the human race, just as Hardy’s vengeful god’s anger is unmerited to him.

Finally, in stanza three, Hardy seems to give his own world view in a colloquial nature. The image of ‘unblooming’ symbolizes hope falling to pieces as a rose may unbloom. Hardy also names fate “Crass Casualty”: chance, and “dicing Time” : either meant as fragmented time, or a gambling of time. Hardy states that the “Doomsters”, or half blind judges of fate (Crass Casualty and dicing Time) randomly allot both pain and pleasure, and with that, he accepts the uncertainty of fate.