[Hardy-l] A Grammatical Question

[Bill Morgan]

I agree with Rosemarie: congratulations and thanks to Patrick Roper, Carolyn
McGrath, Bill Harmon, and Charles Anesi for their enlightening research.  

I'll just add the biographical note that sometime around his 8th birthday,
Hardy's mother gave him Dryden's Virgil along with a few other books.  It's
possible that the lines in question had been bouncing around in Hardy's
memory for many a year before he wrote "Shut Out That Moon" (sometime in
1904).  

Bill Morgan

This kind of etymological scholarship is immensely  rewarding- I wish we 
had more of it! . . .

__ Rosemarie Morgan