Library / Literature & Fiction
Late Lyrics and Earlier, With Many Other Verses
by Thomas Hardy
- Pages
- about 105
- Category
- Literature & Fiction
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 1.9 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
ABOUT half the verses that follow were written quite lately. The rest
are older, having been held over in MS. when past volumes were published,
on considering that these would contain a sufficient number of pages to
offer readers at one time, more especially during the distractions of the
war. The unusually far back poems to be found here are, however, but
some that were overlooked in gathering previous collections. A freshness
in them, now unattainable, seemed to make up for their inexperience and
to justify their inclusion. A few are dated; the dates of others are not
discoverable.
The launching of a volume of this kind in neo-Georgian days by one who
began writing in mid-Victorian, and has published nothing to speak of for
some years, may seem to call for a few words of excuse or explanation.
Whether or no, readers may feel assured that a new book is submitted to
them with great hesitation at so belated a date. Insistent practical
reasons, however, among which were requests from some illustrious men of
letters who are in sympathy with my productions, the accident that
several of the poems have already seen the light, and that dozens of them
have been lying about for years, compelled the course adopted, in spite
of the natural disinclination of a writer whose works have been so
frequently regarded askance by a pragmatic section here and there, to
draw attention to them once more.
I do not know that it is necessary to say much on the contents of the
book, even in deference to suggestions that will be mentioned presently.
I believe that those readers who care for my poems at all—readers to whom
no passport is required—will care for this new instalment of them,
perhaps the last, as much as for any that have preceded them.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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