For the stronger we our houses do build,/The less chance we have of being killed

[tree_and_leaf]

On the whole I think Thomas Hardy was a fine poet. But I am not convinced at all by "The Convergence of the Twain." You have to be prepared to deal with odd diction if you want to read Hardy, and I actually quite like the last line ("And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres."). It is faintly bathetic - but I think it's a bathos that works.

But the penultimate stanza reads:

Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

And I'm afraid I cannot but think of William McGonagall.

Comments

[clanwilliam]

Oh, that one is complete McGonagall. But I can't help think it's compulsory when writing about disasters.

[tree_and_leaf]

Fontane just about got away with it in his Tay Bridge Disaster poem. But he was writing in German - perhaps that helped?