HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H9864  8/27/98  "LOUISA IN THE LANE"
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From: erb@segr.demon.co.uk (Roy Buckle)
Subject: Louisa/Mary Rose
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 21:00:57 +0100
  

Greetings to all Listers!
from a retired academic (science and engineering)
turned musician (qualified but amateur!) writing
serious music for voice and piano, long a reader of Hardy.

According to Purdy,
Hardy attended a rehearsal of Sir
James Barrie's play 'Mary Rose' while staying with him 
shortly before the first production on 22nd April 1920.
TH wrote a poem of two verses with a note 'At a rehearsal
of one of J.M.B's plays'.  The MS, portion of a page of
Hardy's diary. is in the Houghton Library at Harvard.

I don't know if you have seen this play- I have seen
a television production relayed from Scotland by the BBC-
but the story is a strange one of the disappearance, and
re-appearance after 20 years, of the young woman Mary Rose.

My question is, has anyone seen the poem?   It may be that
this poem, and the source of its inspiration was in Hardy'
mind when writing the poem 'To Louisa in the Lane' (Winter Words)
not long before his death.   I have been working to set
this for voice/piano and the attempt to create an appropriate
atmosphere of sound is a great challenge.   (The task was set for
me initially several years ago as a composition exercise!)
The scene (as I see it) in 'Louisa' is strange and (to me) reminiscent
of the final meeting of the ghostly young Mary and her
middle-aged son in 'Mary Rose'.  Hardy is seeing Louisa as he
saw her when they were young, although she died in old age.

Please point me in the direction of the 'Mary Rose' poem if
you possibly can.   (I could add, though perhaps I shouldn't,
that it would have been nice to see the MS at Yale!)

-- 
Roy Buckle

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From: wwmorgan@ilstu.edu
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:31:45 -0500
Subject: Re: Louisa/Mary Rose


Mr. Buckle,

	The poem you seek is number 944 (page 952) in James Gibson's edition of
Hardy's *Complete Poems*, but unless I'm missing something, I think you
will be disappointed when you read it; so far as I can tell, it doesn't
bear upon any of the issues of the play itself but is instead focused on
Barrie's apparently nonchalant demeanour during rehearsals.  

	If you can't get hold of *Complete Poems*, let me know, and I'll
transcribe the poem for you and post it to you privately.

	Best of luck with "To Lousia in the Lane"; meet me in Dorchester, and I'll
show you the lane where Hardy used to meet her and the farmhouse where she
lived.

					cheers,

					Bill Morgan

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From: erb@segr.demon.co.uk (Roy Buckle)
Subject: Re: Louisa/Mary Rose
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 23:28:09 +0100


Thanks, Bill, for your instantaneous response!
Seems to be characteristic of the THSNA: as a new
lister I find you are all incredibly keen.

By the way, I went all around Dorset 30 years ago
including down the 'hollow' of the lane by the side 
of the river.   To drop a name- Norman Atkins took
me to Puddletown for a lunch on Blue Vinney (I paid!).

-- 
Roy Buckle

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