'
or this from another sonnet of the same year:--
'As common chests encasing wares of price
Are borne with tenderness through halls of state.'
Yet no one reading the sonnets of these years can fail to mark the
impress of an individual personality. The effect is, at times, curious
and impressive in the extreme. We almost feel that Mr Hardy is bringing
some physical compulsion to bear on Shakespeare and forcing him to say
something that he does not want to say. Of course, it is merely a
curious tweak of the fancy; but there comes to us in such lines as the
following an insistent vision of two youths of an age the one
masterful, the other indulgent, and carrying out his companion's firm
suggestion:--
'Remembering mine the loss is, not the blame
That Sportsman Time rears but his brood to kill,
Knowing me in my soul the very same--
One who would die to spare you touch of ill!--
Will you not grant to old affection's claim
The hand of friendship down Life's sunless hill?'
But, fancies aside, the effect of these early poems is twofold.
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