Comparing Hap by Thomas Hardy and The Second Coming by Yeats

Comparing Hap by Thomas Hardy and The Second Coming by Yeats Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was one of the great writers of the Late Victorian era. One of his great works out of the many that he produced was his poem Hap, which he wrote in 1866, but did not publish until 1898 in his collection of poems called Wessex Poems. This poem seems to typify the sense of alienation that he and other writers were experiencing at the time, as they saw their times as marked by accelerating social and technological change and by the burden of a worldwide empire (Longman p. 2165). The poem also reveals Hardys own abiding sense of a universe ruled by a blind or hostile fate, a world whose landscapes are etched with traces of the fleeting stories†¦show more content†¦The game of chance that rules a persons fate is played by Time and Causality, or Crass Causality as stated in the poem (Hardy, Longman p. 2255: ll. 11). These things are not an entity with life of their own, and thus they rule our fates with a blind eye, since they cannot see and react to us as an entity like God could. Thus they just go about their ways with indifference to the inhabitants of the world and their worldly lives. Pain and joy thus come about to men without regularity and intent from an almighty, just as consequences of and unrefined Causality and a gambling Time. The last four lines of Hardys poem state this assumption of his very well by stating --Crass Causality obstructs the sun and rain, / And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan.... / These purblind ( meaning half-blind) Doomsters had as readily strown / Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain. (Hardy, Longman p. 2255: ll. 11-14). As you can see, this poem is a very dark and pessimistic poem about a loss of faith in an individual in God. The man replaces his faith in God with his newfound faith in Chance. He believes he is at the mercy of the elemental forces of nature, who rule over him with a blind eye. Fate is thus totally indifferent to him and his life, and he has a deep sadness out of this newfound understanding. He would much rather believe in a God above ruling over his fate, giving him joy and