“God’s Funeral” was written by Thomas Hardy
(1840-1928) between 1908 and 1910 and first published in “The Fortnightly
Review” for March 1912. It was later included in the “Lyrics and Reveries”
section of his November 1914 collection entitled “Satires of Circumstance,
Lyrics and Reveries”, where it followed his poem “A Plaint to Man” which deals
with a similar theme, namely Hardy’s contention that God is a mad-made concept
which mankind would be best advised to abandon.
The poem
I
I saw a slowly-stepping train --
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar --
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.
I saw a slowly-stepping train --
Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar --
Following in files across a twilit plain
A strange and mystic form the foremost bore.
II
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.
And by contagious throbs of thought
Or latent knowledge that within me lay
And had already stirred me, I was wrought
To consciousness of sorrow even as they.
III
The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,
At first seemed man-like, and anon to change
To an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,
At times endowed with wings of glorious range.
IV The fore-borne shape, to my blurred eyes,
At first seemed man-like, and anon to change
To an amorphous cloud of marvellous size,
At times endowed with wings of glorious range.
And this phantasmal variousness
Ever possessed it as they drew along:
Yet throughout all it symboled none the less
Potency vast and loving-kindness strong.
V
Almost before I knew I bent
Towards the moving columns without a word;
They, growing in bulk and numbers as they went,
Struck out sick thoughts that could be overheard: --
VI
'O man-projected Figure, of late
Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?
Whence came it we were tempted to create
One whom we can no longer keep alive?
VII 'O man-projected Figure, of late
Imaged as we, thy knell who shall survive?
Whence came it we were tempted to create
One whom we can no longer keep alive?
'Framing him jealous, fierce, at first,
We gave him justice as the ages rolled,
Will to bless those by circumstance accurst,
And longsuffering, and mercies manifold.
VIII
'And, tricked by our own early dream
And need of solace, we grew self-deceived,
Our making soon our maker did we deem,
And what we had imagined we believed,
'And, tricked by our own early dream
And need of solace, we grew self-deceived,
Our making soon our maker did we deem,
And what we had imagined we believed,
IX
'Till, in Time's stayless stealthy swing,
Uncompromising rude reality
Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning,
Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.
'Till, in Time's stayless stealthy swing,
Uncompromising rude reality
Mangled the Monarch of our fashioning,
Who quavered, sank; and now has ceased to be.
X
'So, toward our myth's oblivion,
Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope
Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon,
Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.
XI 'So, toward our myth's oblivion,
Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope
Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon,
Whose Zion was a still abiding hope.
'How sweet it was in years far hied
To start the wheels of day with trustful prayer,
To lie down liegely at the eventide
And feel a blest assurance he was there!
XII
'And who or what shall fill his place?
Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes
For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
Towards the goal of their enterprise?'...
'And who or what shall fill his place?
Whither will wanderers turn distracted eyes
For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
Towards the goal of their enterprise?'...
XIII
Some in the background then I saw,
Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,
Who chimed as one: 'This is figure is of straw,
This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!'
Some in the background then I saw,
Sweet women, youths, men, all incredulous,
Who chimed as one: 'This is figure is of straw,
This requiem mockery! Still he lives to us!'
XIV
I could not prop their faith: and yet
Many I had known: with all I sympathized;
And though struck speechless, I did not forget
That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.
XV I could not prop their faith: and yet
Many I had known: with all I sympathized;
And though struck speechless, I did not forget
That what was mourned for, I, too, once had prized.
Still, how to bear such loss I deemed
The insistent question for each animate mind,
And gazing, to my growing sight there seemed
A pale yet positive gleam low down behind,
XVI
Whereof, to lift the general night,
A certain few who stood aloof had said,
'See you upon the horizon that small light --
Swelling somewhat?' Each mourner shook his head.
XVII Whereof, to lift the general night,
A certain few who stood aloof had said,
'See you upon the horizon that small light --
Swelling somewhat?' Each mourner shook his head.
And they composed a crowd of whom
Some were right good, and many nigh the best....
Thus dazed and puzzled 'twixt the gleam and gloom
Mechanically I followed with the rest.
Discussion
The poem comprises 17 four-line stanzas
with an ABAB rhyme scheme. It is slow-paced, as befits its subject matter of a
funeral procession, but it is not repetitive and it introduces a number of
separate but related themes that are dealt with in turn.
When first published, the poem had a
subtitle, which was “An Allegorical Conception of the Present State of
Theology”. This is scarcely catchy, but it does at least offer a clue to what
the poem is about.
Although the phrase “God is dead” is
usually associated with the liberal theology of the 1960s it had a much earlier
birth in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, specifically his 1882 work “The Gay
Science”. It is known that Hardy was familiar with Nietzsche’s philosophy and,
although he was not a supporter of it, he would surely have been aware of the
latter’s views on theology, and the “God is dead” idea would have been one that
appealed to him. It was, in any case, hardly a novel or obscure idea by the
time that Hardy was writing his poem.
The narrator of the poem (who can be
assumed to be Hardy himself) describes the sighting of a slow-moving procession
“across a twilit plain”. The body being borne along “at first seemed man-like”
but could also change “to an amorphous cloud of marvellous size” and sometimes
be “endowed with wings of glorious range”. The point being made here is that God
has been viewed by theologians in many different ways, with little agreement
between them as to which is correct, thus supporting Hardy’s view of God as a
“man-projected Figure”.
In the fourth stanza Hardy says that,
despite all the forms that God, as viewed by Man, could take, at the core was
“Potency vast and loving-kindness strong”. These are clearly concepts that
Hardy admires, but his problem was with assigning them to an “out there” figure
as opposed to the humanity that created it.
The narrator decides to follow the
procession and he is thus able to overhear the comments of some of the
mourners. They lament that they are no longer able to keep alive their creation
on which they have come to depend. They describe how they changed their
conception of God down the years, beginning with the Old Testament deity who
was “jealous, fierce” and later assigning to him the qualities of justice,
willingness to bless, and the supplier of “mercies manifold”.
However, they then went too far (“tricked
by our own early dream / And need of solace”) and “grew self-deceived”, so that
“what we had imagined we believed”. As a result they “Mangled the Monarch of
our fashioning” who “now has ceased to be”.
They lament the loss of their comfort
blanket and wonder what can take God’s place. Hardy expresses this neatly as a
desire for another Bethlehem birth:
“Whither will wanderers turn distracted
eyes
For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
Towards the goal of their enterprise?”
For some fixed star to stimulate their pace
Towards the goal of their enterprise?”
Some of the mourners refuse to belief that
God is actually dead, saying “Still he lives to us!” Hardy’s response is that
he can give them no comfort, but he also admits that he was once of their
number: “I did not forget / That what was mourned for, I, too, long had
prized”.
He takes the view that everyone must answer
the question of what to put in God’s place in their own way, and that there is
no catch-all solution. However, he also says that he can see “a pale yet
positive gleam low down behind”. Some of those present (“a certain few who
stood aloof”) agree that they can see, on the horizon, a “small light -- /
Swelling somewhat”, but most of the mourners shake their heads.
The final stanza declares that the people
present contain some who are “right good, and many nigh the best”. Clearly
there is no consensus about the future course, and Hardy admits to being “dazed
and puzzled ‘twixt the gleam and gloom”. He sees no option but to follow the
procession with the rest.
Hardy does not indicate what the “gleam”
might be, which is probably why it is a good idea to read “God’s Funeral”
alongside “A Plaint to Man”, because that poem does furnish a few clues.
Basically, Hardy sees the solution for a world without a personal God as lying
within the individual and with people working together in brotherhood.
Hardy was disappointed by the reaction to
his poem, which was widely interpreted as an attack upon religion. He judged
that many reviewers did not read any further than the title, and that, had they
done so, they might have gathered that Hardy’s plea was not for the abandonment
of religion but for the creation of a form of religion that was suitable for
the 20th century and beyond. Above all he wanted to divorce religion
from dogma and find a way of bringing rationalism and religion together. He saw
poetry as having an important part to play in this.
As a poem, “God’s Funeral” seems to leave
something to be desired. It is not as pithy as “A Plaint to Man” and is in
places verbose. The slow pace, although suitable for accompanying a funeral
procession, is not particularly attractive and reminds the reader of poetry
from a much earlier age. One would not be surprised to learn that Hardy had
been reading Milton’s “Paradise Lost” shortly before starting on “God’s
Funeral”!
© John Welford
Very interesting, poem and commentary -thank you for making this available!
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ReplyDeleteThis man Thomas Hardy is devil incarnate
ReplyDeleteMore like a truth teller.
DeleteNice commentary
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a very challenging poem that must be taught in Asia to wake the people up from dogmatism, fundamentalism and terrorism
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