“Hap” by Thomas Hardy
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.
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 strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
“Hap” Reflection
For the contest Poetry Out Loud, we had to choose two poems, and then inevitably choose one poem to recite out loud, memorized to the class. I had actually found two poems that I felt I identified with, and it was truly hard for me to decide between the two. However, I decided that Hap was a much better reflection of how I felt, and it was a bit easier to memorize than the other one I had chosen.
I do feel a strong sense of anger and passion towards life. I hate it so, and yet I still wish to continue it. When I performed this in class, I felt the hatred that Hardy had in his words. I expressed my own emotions through his poetic waves, the strong words rocking off of my tongue like white-tipped waves crashing dangerously out of the ocean and onto the shore. The very first stanza is what touches me most, as that is where most of the ire is shown. “If but some vengeful god would call to me from up the sky and laugh” already tells you that this person has no hope in life, and that they wish for some explanation. Then throughout the stanza, it is explained further that their pain is the lord’s high, it is what they crave most. It is terrible and insufferable, and as a result the speaker dies instantly from the pure rage built within. To have that pain, and then to curse it to the world is something that I have wanted to do for years, yet I have no reason to. My anger is pure, just as the speaker’s is, and yet it has no beginning or home that tells of its origin.
I may not experience all that this person has, yet I can feel the emotions drip off of my tongue like venom when I speak the poem out loud. The unabashed fury, the melancholy tone and heart of the last stanza that I know I can portray so well. It speaks of a life that cannot be saved, a life that has been so destroyed that one cannot help it. With this, I can identify.