Hap: A Poem by Thomas Hardy

Written in 1866, this short poem is an attempt to come to terms with Darwinism

“Hap” is a poem by Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) that he wrote in 1866, while working as a trainee architect, and for which he could not find a publisher. It did not reach the general public until 1898 when Hardy included it in his first collection, which was entitled “Wessex Poems”, which only appeared after he had concluded his career as a highly successful novelist.

The poem is a sonnet, although it is presented as three stanzas in that the traditional octave is split into two stanzas each of four lines and the sestet is a stanza on its own. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEFFE, which is a variant on the Shakespearean form, although the clean break between octave and sestet is more associated with the Petrarchan sonnet form.

The poem

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 unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.