I had never read any of Hardy's poetry, so this was a great chance to familiarize myself with his further work. Each of the poems presented in this selection had a different verse form, which I found interesting. Maybe using various forms challenged him.

In "Wessex Heights," Hardy contrasts in several places the difference in emotions and thoughts he has between high and low places. When he is on some "heights shaped as if by a kindly hand," he is free to think and contemplate on his life, as "mind-chains do not clank where one's nect neighbor is the sky," but when in the"lowlands", he has no friends, he is "tracked by phantoms," and does not trust himself, as where he writes "Down there I seem to be false to myself." He remembers that he once "fellowed" with some of these people, and now seperates himself from them because they say "harsh heavy things" and "hang about," implying lack of motivation or purpose. The low terrain and towns are symbols of low points in his life.

It is a contrast between himself at a previous time, and himself in the present, as a changing person. He as one who still has growing to do sees his better part watching him, wondering what makes him act so, and calls him his "chrysalis," indicating the holder of transformation for himself. There is a feeling of self-forgiveness here, but he is still weary of his old ways. He talks about seeing ghosts in the town and on the plains, representing people in his past whom he no longer has contact with.

The fact that Wessex was an imaginary place means that the poem can operate on two levels. The terrain of Wessex is also symbolic of his inner world, his thoughts and feelings. He is haunted in the low places, and peaceful in the high places, surrounded by Nature and apart from men. We see here the function of memory in creating one's self. Hardy can not bear to remember the spirits of his past; they cause him distress because he remembers a bad time in his own life, and deals specifically with one whose love was lost to him. He is but a rare and unpreffered thought of hers, and this casting of himself from another perspective further reduces his importance and surety. This rejection also further pushes him away from the world of other men, and more into finding himself by visiting the solitary and nature-focused places of his imagination, where he can contemplate his life and his destiny freely, and find union with nature again, the place where he "was before my birth, and after death may be." His contemplation of better things in the high places becomes synonymous with his oneness with nature and himself.