Tuesday 18 October 2011

Questioning Thomas Hardy's "Nature's Questioning"




I've been re-reading Thomas Hardy's poem, Nature's Questioning. Can anybody tell me which is the correct last line?

My 1923 edition of Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy gives this as the final verse:


"Thus things around. No answerer I...
            Meanwhile the winds, and rains,
            And Earth's old glooms and pains
Are still the same, and Life and Death are neighbours nigh".


The 1898 Wessex Poems and Other Verses ends differently:

        "And Earth's old glooms and pains
Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh".

Presumably Hardy himself made the changes. Which version do you prefer? Which version should be inscribed in stone at Poundbury Cemetery? How is the meaning changed if one reverts to the earlier ending?

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