[Ttha-potm] Caustic Cups

[T. Kevin Taylor]

The caustic cup reminds me of either a Eucharistic cup/chalice, which  
fits in with the upheld imagery, but I then find its caustic-ness  
strange, for I don't think an Anglican like Hardy would find the cup  
of Christ's death, which promises new life, to be caustic (Dawkins and  
Hitchens, certainly, but Hardy?). Religion and dogmas may be caustic  
for Hardy, but lovingkindness, suffering, and the like would not be, I  
don't think. Else why write of the countless suffering ones in "Unkept  
Good Fridays"?

The cup could be the cup of wrath from Revelation and the gospels,  
which would make more sense, as it would be mythological for Hardy,  
and rejection, and law, and condemnation, a form of Pauline  
Christianity (which also isn't fair, but anyway), instead of promise,  
hope for humanity, and a modern understanding, and so on.