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Modern arbiters of literature are as mystified as his contemporaries were by the fact that Hardy , at the height of his reputation in the late 1890s , abandoned novel-writing to devote
the last thirty years of his life to poetry. It seemed as if he was turning away from serious (and profitable) work in order to pursue an idle hobby. “The poet” , he wrote in 1918 ,
“is like one who enters and mounts a platform to give an address as announced. He opens his page , looks around , and finds the hall – empty.” After Jude the Obscure in 1897 , he settled down to spend the rest of his life writing narrative and lyric poetry , supported in
modest comfort by the royalties from his novels. In his poems , as in his previous fictions , he depicts how people either break up under the strains of fate or they harden into a bitter
defiance. He had the peasant's realism , a grim resignation to the fact that life will be harsh. He also had a dour humour, the relish for odd tales about his neighbours, and the slow
endurance that carries on in spite of all life's tribulations. Like many who witness the monotonous lives around them , Hardy had a weakness for junketings , occasional good times and
the roguish gaiety evident in this poem , The Ruined Maid :
' O 'Melia my dear , this does everything crown !
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town ?
And whence such fair garments , such prosperity ? '
' O didn't you know I'd been ruined ? ' said she.
' You left us in tatters , without shoes or socks ,
Tired of digging potatoes and spudding up docks ;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three '
' Yes ; that's how we dress when we're ruined ,' said she.
' You used to call home life a hag-ridden dream ,
And you'd sigh and you'd sock ; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancholy '
' True. One's pretty lively when ruined ,' said she.
' I wish I had feathers , a fine sweeping gown ,
And a delicate face , and could strut about Town.'
' My dear – a raw country girl , such as you be ,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined ,' said she.
Born in a small village near Dorchester in 1840 , he knew poverty from birth , both in his own family and that of his neighbours. He was familiar with shepherds , carriers , dairy maids and
ploughmen , all speaking the Dorset dialect he heard from his own parents. His grandfather , uncle and father were all self-employed stonemason/builders , looking down on the hard-pressed
farm labourers as they themselves were looked down upon by local farmers and professional men. Away from the village and above them all were the landowners , a different species altogether.
In the cultured world of letters and art , country folk were viewed as quaint and picturesque simpletons but in giving them a voice , Hardy preserved their world as the high culture
of the landowners disintegrated after 1914. Following his death in 1928 , events took as bizarre a turn as some of the plots in his novels. His will expressed a clear wish to be buried in
the local churchyard where his parents , his sister and first wife lay. However his literary executor had other ideas and made arrangements for a funeral at Westminster Abbey , who insisted
they only had space for his ashes. The local vicar made a gruesome suggestion , that Hardy's heart be cut out before cremation and buried where he'd asked to be laid was agreed to by his
distraught widow and so , while the eminent processed in the Abbey , a crowd of curious locals gathered in Stinsford churchyard for the heart's burial.
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