[Ttha-potm] 'Four in the Morning' POTM for June 2008

[Bill Morgan]

So, Bill--what do you think it means to have eyes of "guile"?  An eye for
treachery, for "the grisly grin of things" as opposed to some cosmic
paradisiacal smile?

David

Hi, David--

Well, frankly, I'm not sure what it means to say that "we" see with "eyes of
guile" by day.  You've shifted the meaning at least a little by changing the
preposition to "for," (e.g., eyes for guile), but I'm not persuaded that's
warranted.  I think I more or less understand what it means to see by day
"the grisly grin of things," but why our eyes should be said to be "of
guile" is not clear to me.  

As Hardy has written it, the poem would appear to say that by day we see
with eyes that themselves are deceptive (The eyes are "of guile") and that
allow us to see "the grisly grin of things" (What is that?--the smiling
inadequacy of the world as a place for human feeling?).  If the eyes are "of
guile," how can they lead us to see clearly?

As I've said, I don't much admire either phrase--"eyes of guile" or "the
grisly grin of things"--since neither is very clear.  But I still take the
poem seriously and think it worth our attention, especially for what I take
to be its rebuke of its own narrator.

Cheers,

Bill