Hardy Hip-Hop


I found this poem by Thomas Hardy and couldn't help but copy it out and post it here and on the poetics listserv. Jerome Sala and others described it as rap-like, Maria Damon compared it to Iggy Pop.



Thoughts at Midnight

Mankind, you dismay me
When shadows waylay me!-
Not by your splendours
Do you affray me,
Nor as pretenders
To demonic keenness,
Nor by your meanness,
Nor by your ill-teachings
Nor your false preachings,
Nor your banalities
And immoralities,
Nor by your daring
Nor sinister bearing;
But by your madnesses
Capping cool badnesses,
Acting like puppets
Under Time's buffets;
In superstitions
And ambitions
Moved by no wisdom,
Far sight, or system,
Led by sheer senselessness
And presciencelessness
Into unreason
And hideous self-treason....
God, look he on you,
Have mercy upon you!

part written 25 May 1906

(published in Hardy's last book of poems "Winter Words in Various Moods")