JOSEPH BRODSKY
365
poem determines its length as much as - if not more than - its story line.
"So little cause for carolings / Of such ecstatic sound" is no less a de–
nouement than the euphonic imperative created by the preceding
twenty-four lines, requiring resolution. A poem's length, in other words,
is its breath. The first stanza inhales, the second exhales, the third stanza
inhales ... Guess what you need a fourth stanza for? To complete the
cycle.
Remember that this is a poem about looking into the future . As
such, it has to be balanced. Our man , poet though he is, is not a
utopian; nor can he permit himself the posture of a prophet, or that of a
visionary. The subject itself, by definition, is too pregnant with impreci–
sion; so what's required of the poet here is sobriety, regardless of
whether he is pessimistic or optimistic by temperament. Hence the abso–
lutely remarkable linguistic content of the fourth stanza, with its fusion
of legalese ("cause ... Was written ") with modernist detachment ("on
terrestrial things") and the quaintly archaic ("Afar or nigh around").
"So little cause for carolings / Of such ecstatic sound / Was written
on terrestrial things" betrays not so much the unique bloody-mindedness
of our poet as his impartiality to any level of diction he resorts to in a
poem. There is something frighteningly democratic in Hardy's whole ap–
proach
to
poetics, and it can be summed up as "so long as it works."
Note the elegiac opening of this stanza, all the more poignant in
tone because of the "growing gloom" a lin e before . The pitch is still
climbing up, we are still after an elevation, after an exit from our cul-de–
sac. "So little cause" [caesura] "for carolings / Of such ecstatic" - caesura
- "sound . .. " "Ecstatic" carries an exclamation, and so, after the
caesura, does "sound."
Vocally, this is the highest point in the stanza; even "whereof he
knew / And I was unaware" is several notes - notches - lower. And yet
even at this highest point, the poet, we realize, holds his voice in check,
because "carolings / Of such ecstatic sound" are what "a full-hearted
evensong" comes down to; which is to say, the evaluation of the bird's
voice has undergone a demotion, with ecclesiastical diction being sup–
planted, as it were, by lay parlance . And then comes this terrific "Was
written on terrestrial things," whose detachment from any particularity
bespeaks presumably the vantage point either of the "weakening eye of
day" or, to say the least, of the bird itself, and that's why we have the
archaic - which is to say, impersonal - "Afar or nigh around."
The unparticularity and impersonality, however, belong to neither,
but rather to their fusion, the crucible being the poet's mind or, if you
will, the language itself. Let's dwell on this extraordinary line - "Was
written on terrestrial things" - a bit longer, for it crept into this turn-
