Transcribed from the 1919 Macmillan and Co. “Wessex Poems and Other Verses; Poems of the Past and the Present” edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org WESSEX POEMS AND OTHER VERSES * * * * * BY THOMAS HARDY * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1919 * * * * * COPYRIGHT “_Wessex Poems_”: _First Edition_, _Crown_ 8vo, 1898. _New Edition_ 1903. _First Pocket Edition June_ 1907. _Reprinted January_ 1909, 1913 “_Poems_, _Past and Present_”: _First edition_ 1901 (dated 1902) _Second Edition_ 1903. _First Pocket Edition June_ 1907 _Reprinted January_ 1908, 1913, 1918, 1919 * * * * * PREFACE TO WESSEX POEMS OF the miscellaneous collection of verse that follows, only four pieces have been published, though many were written long ago, and other partly written. In some few cases the verses were turned into prose and printed as such, it having been unanticipated at that time that they might see the light. Whenever an ancient and legitimate word of the district, for which there was no equivalent in received English, suggested itself as the most natural, nearest, and often only expression of a thought, it has been made use of, on what seemed good grounds. The pieces are in a large degree dramatic or personative in conception; and this even where they are not obviously so. The dates attached to some of the poems do not apply to the rough sketches given in illustration, which have been recently made, and, as may be surmised, are inserted for personal and local reasons rather than for their intrinsic qualities. T. H. _September_ 1898. CONTENTS