[Ttha-potm] "Who's in the Next Room?" TTHA Poem of the Month forJune 2008

[Niemeyer, Paul J.]

Personally, I don't find this to be one of Hardy's better poems; what hurts it is its obviousness.  When I read the first stanza I thought perhaps this would be another "Emma" poem-the poet passionately yearning for a spectral figure who isn't there-but by the second stanza, with its Dantean "you catch not his tongue who has entered there," the identity of the figure in the next room is obvious: Death personified.

 

One of the elements about Hardy's poetry I've most enjoyed is his ability to personify abstract notions, or God, and invest them with humor and uniqueness.  Here, though, we get "breath like a clammy draught," and an all-too-common warning: "you'll know him anon."  This is a very familiar version of Death: he might as well wear a black robe and carry a sickle.

 

Perhaps I'm being a little too hard here: the poem is by no means bad, and it has a characteristic of Hardy's poetry I very much admire: a sing-songy tone that suggests a nursery rhyme, but delivers something far less comforting than that.  However, I don't see Hardy taking on Death and making it his own (strange as that sounds), or saying anything more complicated than: "well, it's inevitable."

 

Those are my thoughts.

 

Best,

 

Paul Niemeyer

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