[Ttha-potm] "Friends Beyond" TTHA Poem of the Month for January 2009

[Philip Irwin]

I first came across this poem many years after reading John Betjeman's
striking  'Dorset', and didn't realise until then that 'Dorset' copies many
of the rhythms and phraseology of 'Friends Beyond' and is in a way a tribute
to Hardy's themes (certainly not a parody or satire). Betjeman musically
conjoins modern Dorset village names, and places contemporary literati as
corpses in Mellstock churchyard. I see that Betjeman's poem was published in
the Hardy forum a decade ago: here is the link -
http://www.tthaforumarchives.info/archives/1999/H9971.txt

Paul Niemeyer points out that Tranter Reuben fails to have a voice in
'Friends Beyond'. Interestingly, in Betjeman's poem the only Hardy name (not
counting Mellstock) that is found is that of Tranter Reuben, repeated in all
three stanzas.



Philip Irwin
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