With such books as “Jude the Obscure,” “Far from the Madding Crowd,“ “The Mayor of Casterbridge,” and “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” still on what remains of college reading lists, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) occupies space in the public mind mostly as a novelist. Yet he thought of himself as a poet, and he wrote hundreds of poems: all accomplished, often complicated in their technical construction, and all pointing toward deep thoughts. As his novels claimed public attention, his poetry faded, but in the second half of the 20th century, the poet Philip Larkin led the effort to revive Hardy’s poetry. The work is so vast, and so good, that even the formalist poets who love his work will inevitably discover that there is always yet one more Hardy poem they didn’t know. In “How Great My Grief,” Hardy constructs a tetrameter triolet (an eight-line, two-rhyme poetic form) to express the long pain of loss.

How Great My Grief
by Thomas Hardy

How great my grief, my joys how few, 
     Since first it was my fate to know thee! 
—Have the slow years not brought to view 
How great my grief, my joys how few, 
Nor memory shaped old times anew, 
     Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee 
How great my grief, my joys how few, 
     Since first it was my fate to know thee?

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet, Sally Thomas. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.