While Day Decays

Here's a piece from Thomas Hardy's Satires of Circumstance. This poem was probably written in July of 1914.

A POET

Attentive eyes, fantastic heed,
Assessing minds, he does not need,
Nor urgent writs to sup or dine,
Nor pledges in the rosy wine.

For loud acclaim he does not care
By the august or rich or fair,
Nor for smart pilgrims from afar,
Curious on where his hauntings are.

But soon or later, when you hear
That he has doffed his wrinkled gear,
Some evening, at the first star-ray,
Come to his graveside, pause and say:

"Whatever his message-- glad or grim--
Two bright-souled women clave to him";
Stand and say that while day decays;
It will be word enough of praise.

I can't help but think there's something to this poem's notion of a poet's desired assessment, personal rather than critical or historical. Corny? Perhaps. Romanticized? Almost certainly. Universal? Not really, especially if one thinks of romantic misanthropes like Pound or technists like Dryden. But there's also a fair bit of truth to it, too.... I won't elucidate on that, but I think most poets would desire themselves eulogized for the measure of his emotional matter. And, frankly, I love those words, "two bright-souled women clave to him." The words are neither diffident nor rapturous; they seem, to me at least, perfect in their simplicity. I find I think a lot about poetic simplicity these days, perhaps because it's become so difficult to say the simplest things without lapsing into one form of misstatement or another. And perhaps, too, because there is little more affirming for a (heterosexual male, at least) poet than being desired by a "bright-souled" woman. In the end, even our most able poets are, in their own ways, soul-singers. Let us never overlook the obvious.