His stars eternally.
In The Dynasts, which was published in several parts between 1903 and 1908, we meet with Mr. Hardy’s most ambitious poetical effort. In scope the poem is vast, for it deals with the Napoleonic wars, with all Europe for its scene. In length it is prodigious, and before the reader has reached the end he is overwhelmed with the magnitude of it. In form it is dramatic, in the sense that Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound is dramatic; the scene shifts from point to point, the historical figures utter long monologues, and superhuman intelligences, such as Pity and the Spirit of the Years, add commentaries upon the activities of mankind. Above and behind all of it broods a sense of stern fatalism—the Immanent Will, as the author calls it; and in front of this enormous curtain of fate and futility even the figure of Napoleon is dwarfed and impotent.
Satires of Circumstance (1914) is another collection of shorter pieces. The satires themselves, which occupy quite a small portion of the book, are almost brutal and rancorous in their choice and treatment of unhappy incidents. No doubt their author judges such a tone to be necessary in the production of satire. The effect is very impressive. For example, in the short piece called In the Cemetery he begins:
“You see those mothers squabbling there?”
Remarks the man of the cemetery.
“One says in tears, ‘’Tis mine lies here!’
Another, ‘Nay, mine, you Pharisee!’
Another, ‘How dare you move my flowers
And put your own on this grave of ours!’
But all their children were laid therein