Works of Thomas Hardy discussion
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My Cicely
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One of the many story poems that Hardy did so well, this one is taken from his first published poetry collection, Wessex Poems and Other Verses. We know, from the superscription "(17--)," that it's supposed to take place sometime in the 18th century. (The "I," of course, is not Hardy himself, but an imaginary narrator.) The fictitious geographical references, for instance to "Wessex" and "Casterbridge," place us in his favorite fictional locale, his imaginary county of Wessex.In the first two stanzas, Hardy puts us into the story en media res. The narrator is told that the lady (the Cicely of the title) that he thought had died actually still lives; the dead woman just happened to have the same first name. We learn in the next few stanzas that "his" Cicely was someone he loved many years ago, but "vainly" (the couple didn't end up together). For all those years, he's lived far away (probably in London), and had other love interests that allowed this one to "dwindle." But hearing (as he supposed) of her death revived the passion, and he's come on a long sad journey to mourn at her grave. The news that she actually lives, as he said in the first stanza, brings him wonder and joy.
But it's short-lived. In stanzas 17-18, he's told that the living Cicely is married, and keeps an inn. She'd married "beneath her" (it was mentioned in passing in stanza 16 that she came from a clerical family, which would have some status), to "her lackey," apparently a manservant; and it's implied that she married to avoid the scandal of an unwed pregnancy. In the following stanzas, he realizes to his horror that in passing by the inn she runs, in route to her supposed grave, he saw her without recognizing her, and moreover saw a woman who's become less refined and more coarsened by her changed circumstances over the ensuing years. He takes that revelation hard, and proceeds to feel very sorry for himself (more so than for her!) at being thus compelled to take her off the pedestal he'd mentally put her on.
The last page of the poem recounts his journey homeward (bypassing the inn this time). In the course of that trip, he convinces himself that the dead woman was actually "his" Cicely, and the innkeeper the different lady with the same name, and he continues to cling to that idea down to his present, when he's narrating this. He finds that less painful than admitting the truth would be, and it spares him the supposed necessity of otherwise blaming God for allowing the couple's fate to be such a sad one.
This poem struck me, when I first read it (and still does!), as a profound psychological study of the capacity of human beings to deliberately delude ourselves with what, at one level, we know to be falsehoods that shield us from facing unpleasant truths, as well as our capacity to blame God (or fate, or anybody/anything except ourselves) for outcomes that our own actions had a big hand in shaping. We see all of this through the narrator's eyes, so we don't hear about things he doesn't want to tell us (or himself). But we can't help but wonder....
For instance, Cicely and the narrator were once "lovers;" it wasn't the case that she never returned his affection. Why did they break up, and was some (or a lot) of the fault on his side? Did he father the child he didn't know about? (In 19th-century English, unlike today's, "lovers" didn't necessarily imply "bed partners --but it doesn't exclude the possibility.) If he did, why did she prefer marrying a servant to getting in touch with him and telling him her situation, and what does that say about him?
To my mind, the poem is also a commentary on the somewhat sexist way that many males (in the 1700s, in Hardy's time, and even today) think of women. He puts "his" Cicely on a high pedestal, to be sure, but at the expense of allowing her to actually be the woman she is, one who's had hard circumstances in life and done her best to cope with them, and yes, one who's no longer the beauty she was decades ago. He doesn't seem to have much awareness that the decades probably haven't helped his looks much, either. (I don't know if I'm explaining my thought very well here, but that's the best I can do!)
Apologies for posting this a bit early, because I'll be limited in my online time tomorrow; hopefully no harm is done by it! Over to you all for your thoughts now. :-)
"My Cicely" is a poem of a journey. The narrator's horse is galloping along "the ancient West Highway," an old Roman road (stanza 6). He mentions the Legions (stanza 10) on his way to Exeter. I didn't recognize all the locations since I'm not English, but Casterbridge, Maidon, Pummerie (stanzas 11-13) are places we know from reading "The Mayor of Casterbridge." Cromlech (stanza 14) is a miniature Stonehenge.There is also a journey in his mind as he first thinks that a former lover, Cecily, has died. He has good memories of her in his wild youth (stanzas 3-4). Then he finds out she's still alive but realizes she is no longer the pretty girl of his youth. He wants to treasure his memory of her in her younger days, instead of the older, working-class bar maid that she had become (possibly because of an unplanned pregnancy in stanzas 17-18). So he pretends that she is the deceased Cecily so he can preserve his happy memories.
"'Tis better to dream than to own the debasement of sweet Cicely."
The poem has an interesting rhyme with only the last word of each stanza rhyming (me, she, knee, be, etc).
Werner, thank you for your comments about how the narrator puts Cicely on a pedestal and expects her not to change as she grows older and her circumstances change. This poem had a good story and showed Hardy's insight into human emotions.
Mod
The theme is familiar from something else we read - perhaps someone can recall it, please? It escapes me, except that it was based on a real historical event Thomas Hardy read concerning a noblewoman involved with a servant 🤔
I'll "translate" some of the place names in order. As Connie said, we have come across some of them in the stories and novels we have read:
"West Highway to far Exon'bry" - Exonbury is Exeter
"Weatherbury" is Puddletown
Gabriel Oak in Far From the Madding Crowd lived in Weatherbury just as his real-life counterpart shepherd friend lived in Puddletown
"Casterbridge" is Dorchester
The Mayor of Casterbridge
"hill-fortress of Eggar" is Eggardon Hill
a prehistoric hillfort
"Pummerie square" is Poundbury Camp
a historic site near Dorchester, i.e. another ancient earthwork. Also in The Mayor of Casterbridge
"Nine-Pillared Cromlech" - a cromlech is a prehistoric tomb or stone circle that had nine upright stones as supports for a large capstone. So this again is a prehistoric megalithic structure. However it is very specific and quite rare - I think Thomas Hardy may have "lifted" this one from another part of the West country!
"Bride-streams, The Axe, and the Otter.. the Exe" - all rivers. I'm in the Bride Valley in my caravan right now.
(Please let me know if I missed any ... I was scrolling.)
Linking to our list now.
Jean, thanks for the helpful identifications of these place names!
Mod
I enjoy narrative poems and this one was no exception. I do not think I have come across it before, so thanks Werner for the selection. The thought that stayed with me was how rooted in the past our narrator had become that, in his mind, he had not aged Cecily or moved her forward to other endeavors...as if he had frozen her while his own life continued. He also was able to just continue with the fantasy even after knowing the truth, because people so often believe what they want to believe, despite the evidence to the contrary.
Mod
(17--)
"Alive?" And I leapt in my wonder,
Was faint of my joyance,
And grasses and grove shone in garments
Of glory to me.
"She lives, in a plenteous well-being,
To-day as aforehand;
T..."
I just love story poems you give us, Werner. I would not seek them out myself, and I so enjoy reading them. I liked your observations about how the narrator takes no responsibility on himself for his own emotions but puts it all on Cicely. I got that feeling too.
Jean, to answer your question about why a girl marrying below her station sounds familiar, I have two thoughts.
First, I thought of a poem Werner previously led, "The Dance at the Phoenix (here's the link):
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The woman in that poem doesn't marry below her station, but she does long for someone she loved before she married, which is similar to the narrator in "Cicely" longing for a lost love.
The other option is the short story "The First Countess of Wessex", which Pamela led for us in July 2024. Here's that link:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
In that story a mother wants her daughter to marry a man with a title. While the father wants his daughter to marry for love. That story was based in part on the real-life story of the heiress of Melbury House.
If it's not either of those, then I'm stumped ;-)
Mod
At first I thought it was the former poem, but now I'm sure it was The First Countess of Wessex which this reminded me of, because of the real-life inspiration ("based in part on the real-life story of the heiress of Melbury House.")
I'm so pleased you have resolved this "niggle" in my mind 🙂- Bravo!
Mod
Works of Thomas Hardy
Books mentioned in this topic
The First Countess of Wessex (other topics)Far From the Madding Crowd (other topics)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (other topics)
(17--)
"Alive?" And I leapt in my wonder,
Was faint of my joyance,
And grasses and grove shone in garments
Of glory to me.
"She lives, in a plenteous well-being,
To-day as aforehand;
The dead bore the name though a rare one -
The name that bore she."
She lived . . . I, afar in the city
Of frenzy-led factions,
Had squandered green years and maturer
In bowing the knee
To Baals illusive and specious,
Till chance had there voiced me
That one I loved vainly in nonage
Had ceased her to be.
The passion the planets had scowled on,
And change had let dwindle,
Her death-rumour smartly relifted
To full apogee.
I mounted a steed in the dawning
With acheful remembrance,
And made for the ancient West Highway
To far Exonb'ry.
Passing heaths, and the House of Long Sieging,
I neared the thin steeple
That tops the fair fane of Poore's olden
Episcopal see;
And, changing anew my onbearer,
I traversed the downland
Whereon the bleak hill-graves of Chieftains
Bulge barren of tree;
And still sadly onward I followed
That Highway the Icen,
Which trails its pale riband down Wessex
O'er lynchet and lea.
Along through the Stour-bordered Forum,
Where Legions had wayfared,
And where the slow river upglasses
Its green canopy,
And by Weatherbury Castle, and thencefrom
Through Casterbridge held I
Still on, to entomb her my vision
Saw stretched pallidly.
No highwayman's trot blew the night-wind
To me so life-weary,
But only the creak of the gibbets
Or waggoners' jee.
Triple-ramparted Maidon gloomed grayly
Above me from southward,
And north the hill-fortress of Eggar,
And square Pummerie.
The Nine-Pillared Cromlech, the Bride-streams,
The Axe, and the Otter
I passed, to the gate of the city
Where Exe scents the sea;
Till, spent, in the graveacre pausing,
I learnt 'twas not my Love
To whom Mother Church had just murmured
A last lullaby.
- "Then, where dwells the Canon's kinswoman,
My friend of aforetime?"
('Twas hard to repress my heart-heavings
And new ecstasy.)
"She wedded." "Ah!" "Wedded beneath her -
She keeps the stage-hostel
Ten miles hence, beside the great Highway -
The famed Lions-Three.
"Her spouse was her lackey no option
'Twixt wedlock and worse things;
A lapse over-sad for a lady
Of her pedigree!"
I shuddered, said nothing, and wandered
To shades of green laurel:
Too ghastly had grown those first tidings
So brightsome of blee!
For, on my ride hither, I'd halted
Awhile at the Lions,
And her her whose name had once opened
My heart as a key
I'd looked on, unknowing, and witnessed
Her jests with the tapsters,
Her liquor-fired face, her thick accents
In naming her fee.
"O God, why this seeming derision!"
I cried in my anguish:
"O once Loved, O fair Unforgotten -
That Thing meant it thee!
"Inurned and at peace, lost but sainted,
Were grief I could compass;
Depraved 'tis for Christ's poor dependent
A cruel decree!"
I backed on the Highway; but passed not
The hostel. Within there
Too mocking to Love's re-expression
Was Time's repartee!
Uptracking where Legions had wayfared,
By cromlechs unstoried,
And lynchets, and sepultured Chieftains,
In self-colloquy,
A feeling stirred in me and strengthened
That SHE was not my Love,
But she of the garth, who lay rapt in
Her long reverie.
And thence till to-day I persuade me
That this was the true one;
That Death stole intact her young dearness
And innocency.
Frail-witted, illuded they call me;
I may be. 'Tis better
To dream than to own the debasement
Of sweet Cicely.
Moreover I rate it unseemly
To hold that kind Heaven
Could work such device to her ruin
And my misery.
So, lest I disturb my choice vision,
I shun the West Highway,
Even now, when the knaps ring with rhythms
From blackbird and bee;
And feel that with slumber half-conscious
She rests in the church-hay,
Her spirit unsoiled as in youth-time
When lovers were we.