Hardy's works take place in Wessex (named after the Anglo-Saxon kingdom which existed in the area). One of his distinctive achievements is to have captured the cultural atmosphere of rural Wessex in the golden epoch that existed just before the coming of the railways and the agricultural and industrial revolutions that were to change the English countryside for ever. His works are often deeply pessimistic and full of bitter irony, in sharp contrast to the prevalent Victorian optimism.
Amabel
I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
My Amabel?"
I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.
Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.
I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?" -
Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
An Amabel.
- I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
Ruled Amabel!
I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
"Fond things I'll no more tell
To Amabel,
"But leave her to her fate,
And fling across the gate,
'Till the Last Trump, farewell,
O Amabel!'"
1865.
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