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Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was the author of such beloved literary classics as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). His territory was the fictional region of Wessex, a rural world in decline where his characters waged epic battles between passion and circumstance. Hardy was highly critical of the Victorians and they, in turn, criticized him. After Jude the Obscure was nicknamed Jude the Obscene, he focused on poetry, composing a number of significant works whose admirers included Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, and Dylan Thomas.

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Neutral Tones

by Thomas Hardy
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We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
            —They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
            On which lost the more by our love.
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