“Hap” Introduction

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“Hap” Summary

“Hap” Themes

• 

  Chance and Suffering

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Hap”

• Lines 1-4

  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!"

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-8

  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.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-10

  But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
  And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-14

  —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.

  

  

  

  

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“Hap” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Antithesis

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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“Hap” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• But
• Vengeful
• Thou/Thy
• Ecstasy
• Profiting
• Bear
• Clench Myself
• Steeled
• Ire
• Unmerited
• Half-eased
• Powerfuller
• Meted
• How arrives it
• Slain
• Unblooms
• Sown
• Crass
• Casualty
• Dicing
• Casts
• Purblind
• Doomsters
• Readily
• Strown
• Blisses
• Pilgrimage

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Hap”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Hap” Speaker

“Hap” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Hap”

More “Hap” Resources

• External Resources

  • A Reading of the Poem — The poem out loud, read by YouTube reader Tom O'Bedlam. 

  • The Hardy Society — Check out a wide range of resources provided by the society set up in Hardy's honor.  

  • Thomas Hardy Documentary — Watch a BBC documentary about Hardy's life and works. 

  • Victorian Pessimism — The British podcast "In Our Time" discusses the general atmosphere of pessimism in which Hardy was writing.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Thomas Hardy

  • A Broken Appointment

  • Afterwards

  • At an Inn

  • At Castle Boterel

  • A Wife in London

  • Channel Firing

  • Drummer Hodge

  • He Never Expected Much

  • Neutral Tones

  • The Convergence of the Twain

  • The Darkling Thrush

  • The Man He Killed

  • The Oxen

  • The Ruined Maid

  • The Voice

  • Weathers

  • Where the Picnic Was