Thomas Hardy was born in Dorsetshire, England, in 1840. His first job was an architect and he worked in London and Dorset for ten years. Hardy began his writing career as a novelist and was soon successful enough to leave the field of architecture for writing. His novels Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, received negative reviews upon publication and Hardy was criticized for being too occupied with sex. He left fiction writing for poetry, and published eight books of poetry, including Wessex Poems.
In his poetry Hardy captures human loss and sorrow. Hardy's poetry usually explores the negative outlook of fate against. He rejected the belief in God, and much of his poetry reads on the helplessness of a character against uncontrollable forces. In technique of writing he is a traditional poet, he wrote using an original style, combining uneven rhythms and choice of words with a variety of meters and stanzaic poems. Thomas Hardy died in 1928.
She - At His Funeral.
They bear him to his resting-place-- .
In slow procession sweeping by; .
I follow at a stranger's space;.
His kindred they, his sweetheart I.
Unchanged my gown of garish dye,.
Though sable-sad is their attire; .
But they stand round with griefless eye, .
Whilst my regret consumes like fire!.
In this poem, the narrator is a woman watching from the distance, the funeral of her lover and to whose family she is a stranger. The family of the dead one are of a higher class than the woman and that is why she is at a distance. The family is also wearing "sable-sad- or appropriate clothing of mourning at the time compared to the narrator's "garish dye- or gaudy colors that she is wearing. The family is not that saddened by the death of their relative, they stand at the burial with a "griefless eye- while the narrator has a lot of regret like she had part in the death of her lover, or her regret could come from his family not accepting her because she is a lower class than her.