[Hardy-l] "Haunting Fingers"

[Lorne Mook]

Many Hardy poems haunt me—some like “At Castle Boterel” or “The Face at the 
Casement” are in the front of my mind thanks to unforgettable language and 
powerful scenes; others toward the back are faint murmurs or faded pictures. 
  And then there are poems like “Haunting Fingers” that I know I’ve read but 
that, alas, have made no impression at all.

And so I reread, and begin with a first impression: Hardy’s handling of form 
and especially of diction are not at their most striking. Then I read again, 
and find my first impression confirmed—but find too something interesting 
going on with form and diction.  First: form. Two stanzas spoken by 
instruments are followed by one stanza of commentary, and so the pattern 
continues through the poem. The four lines of each instrument-stanza have 2, 
3, 5, and 6 feet; the four lines of each commentary-stanza have 3, 3, 3, and 
2 feet.  Second: diction.  Is there a stanza in which Hardy’s diction is 
working for me?  Yes. Stanza 6 stands out:  “And they felt old muscles 
travel / Over their tense contours, / And with long skill unravel / 
Cunningest scores.”  Here is a pairing of space and time, the space of the 
instrument over which muscles once traveled and the time during which the 
musicians turned the pages of the scores; here is a space in which a contour 
is held in tension and a time unravels, is released from tension.

Diction of one stanza leads me back to form of all.  It seems the contrast 
that Hardy’s words present in stanza 6 is embodied in the form of the two 
kinds of stanzas in the poem.  The small, rather tidy looking rooms of the 
commentary-stanzas seem like the tense contours of the instruments; and the 
stanzas spoken by those same instruments (with each line longer than the 
last) seem to be unraveling, with the unraveling of scores necessary to play 
music on the instruments being transferred to the instruments themselves.

So, the language may not be unforgettable, or the scene powerful; but 
perhaps there is something to haunt the mind, and something for the mind to 
ponder, nonetheless.

Lorne Mook

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