Thomas Hardy: Hap Thomas Hardy: A vakvéletlen

If but some vengeful god would call to me Ha egy vad isten vigyorogna fönn
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing, S leszólna: "Te gyötrődő görcscsomó,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, Tudd meg, hogy bánatod az örömöm.
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!” Csalódsz? Gyűlöletemnek az a jó!"

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die, Vállalnám, s meghalnék dacolva, meg,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; Edzene megnemérdemelt harag,
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I Vígasztalna, hogy a könnyeimet
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed. Olyan fakasztja, ki Hatalmasabb.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan…
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
De nem így van. Mért rogy le az öröm,
Miért nem virágzik a legszebb remény?
A Véletlentől húny a fényözön,
Az Idő rulettjén veszít a fény...
A vak Bírák döntése lágy s kemény:
Az Áldás éppen úgy hull, mint a könny.

In the poem “Hap,” the speaker laments the loss of a loved one. The first stanza
consists of him hoping that “some vengeful god” is the cause of the speaker’s pain. He
imagines that the god would say that the speaker’s sorrow brings a perverted joy to the god:
“thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” The speaker describes his reaction to this revelation in
the second stanza. He would “bear … clench … and die,” showing that his suffering would
still continue and possibly even intensify. He is upset that the god would do this to him
because he does not deserve this “ire unmerited.” However, the speaker also says he would be
“half-eased, too” because there would have been no way to prevent the terrible fate that befell
him since it was caused by a being “Powerfuller” than him. The speaker emits a sense of
acceptance in the event that a god claims that he is the cause of the speaker’s suffering.
However, no god claims to be the cause. Instead, the speaker is mournful about his fate. He
describes his life, environment, and mindset as bleak and gloomy: “Crass Casualty obstructs
the sun and the rain, / And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan….” The speaker comes to
the conclusion that all the blissful things in his life are either pain in disguise or the source of
future pain.
The tone of the speaker is conflicted, pained, and melancholic. In the beginning when
he ponders the idea of a god torturing him, the speaker is agitated and upset because an
outside force in the one causing his suffering and he cannot do anything to prevent it.
Simultaneously however, he also realizes that his fate is out of his control and it cannot be
changed, prompting a sense of acceptance from him. This mixture of agitation and acceptance
demonstrate the speaker’s conflicted feelings about a divine being meddling in his life. By the
end of the poem however, the speaker relents that there is no god responsible for pain. Such a
revelation eliminates the speaker’s half-easiness about the loss because he can no longer
believe that a god “had willed and metered me the tears I shed.” His half-easiness is replaced
by a bleak outlook on life, where the sun and rain are obscured and time moans. The speaker’s
outlook causes him to become melancholic as he sufferers worsening emotional pain, so great
that it makes him doubt all the good in life.