Ferment (1863-1870)
In 1867 Hardy forsook London for Weymouth and began earnestly to practice the writing of prose as well as of verse. The two years or more which he spent at this popular south coast town, the "Budmouth" of his "Wessex," comprised a period of violently fermenting mental life. Not only did he observe objects and scenes with the eye of the trained artist, but he must have been at this time a keen diviner of hidden human motives, as they revealed themselves through the appearances and actions of the ever-varying holiday crowds that thronged the resort. Not only did he watch; one may be sure he established human contacts also. No mere amateur-student of life could have produced the many touches of psychological insight that are to be found in his earliest work. They were written by a young man who had observed and lived at the same time.
This intense and idealistic spiritual life, animated by Shelleyan visions in the midst of the gay and picturesque surroundings of the place, is probably reflected in a poem that he planned at this time: At a Seaside Town in 1869. Rewritten "from an old note," it was finally included in Moments of Vision:
Spelled the dark sky
And ship-lights nigh,
And grumbling winds that passed thereby.
And there, above
All, shone my Love,
That nothing matched the image of.
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