Hardy Perennials

An original dedication by Brenda Sharp

Tess of the D'Urbervilles should have stayed

Far from the Madding Crowd.

Jude the Obscure may then have made proud

The Return of the Native.

The Woodlanders and The Laodicean

Had they stayed Under the Greenwood Tree,

With The Dynasts of their own volition,

Could have made The Well-Beloved free.

Life's Little Ironies, day by day -

Brought A Group of Noble Dames

In sight of The Mayor of Casterbridge on his way

To A Pair of Blue Eyes' flames.

The Trumpet Major had by chance

Remembered Two on a Tower's dawn,

And from The Hand of Ethelberta,

Miscellaneous Verses were born.

Desperate Remedies were taken

After Satires of Circumstance made

The Life of Thomas Hardy awaken-

Then his poems Winter Words were laid.

Hardy's desire not to be Times Laughingstocks

Added The Queen of Cornwall to his name,

And made the Wessex Tales unlock

The door to his lasting fame.

© Brenda Sharp 2020

• Associated pages
• Visiting the Sick Tree at St. Pancras Old Church Cemetery
• 'Great Things' and 'The Oxen'
• Desperate Remedies
• A Laodicean - Part of the Novels of Ingenuity Trilogy
• The Withered Arm
• The Heaths of Hardy
• Best and Worst Poems of Thomas Hardy
• Tess (No Angel Wings)
• The Darkling Heart
• Great Things
• The Hand of Ethelberta - A New Play
• The Lepidopterist's Tragedy
• The Destruction of My England
• Henchard's Last Will and Testament
• The Gabriel Oak Tree
• The Three Wayfarers (Opera)
• Settings for Baritone and Piano by John Whittaker
• Hardy Perennials by Brenda Sharp
• Neutral Tones: Song Settings of the Poetry of Thomas Hardy
• Penpethy Souls
• A History of English Poesy
• The Coppice Gate
• Where the Picnic Was with a Musical Accompaniment by Gary Cunliffe
• In Praise
• Thomas Hardy Songs
• 'Bathsheba' by Izzy Rees
• The Three Strangers
• 'Interlopers at the Knap'
• 'What the Shepherd Saw'
• 'The Superstitious Man'
• Thomas Hardy's The Hand of Ethelberta
• Thomas Hardy Poems to Music

Dates for your Diary

From 14/09/2024 until 01/08/2026
Starts 09:00 until 18:00

10th DORCHESTER LITERARY FESTIVAL

From 12/10/2024 until 19/10/2024
Starts 12:00 until 19:30

MARK CHUTTER A LITERARY WALK – WESSEX WRITERS

On 13/10/2024
Starts 12:00 until 14:00

Alan Hollinghurst

On 16/10/2024
Starts 18:00 until 21:00

Thomas Hardy Society visit to Stourhead

Sep2024

Neolithic site found under Max Gate

Sep2024

A Hedgehog Hospital for Dorset

Aug2024

Thomas Hardy Society Schools Outreach

Aug2024