Thomas Hardy, Victorian novelist turned Modernist Poet

If but some vengeful god would call to me 

From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing, 

Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, 

That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!” 

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die, 

Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; 

Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I 

Had willed and meted me the tears I shed. 

But not so.   How arrives it joy lies slain, 

And why unblooms the best hope ever sown? 

—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain, 

And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . . 

These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown 

Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

                                                     -Hap, by Thomas Hardy