Although best remembered today for his novels, Thomas Hardy thought of himself as a poet forced by circumstance to write fiction for a living. This generous selection of nearly two hundred poems includes such familiar pieces as During Wind and Rain, Channel Firing, Afterwards, The Darkling Thrush, and The Oxen, but it will also acquaint readers with many less-celebrated works, among them To Lizbie Browne, After the Last Breath, My Spirit Will Not Haunt the Mound, The Haunter, Old Furniture, A Procession of Dead Days, The Harbour Bridge, At a Country Fair, Last Love-Word, Waiting Both, and Proud Songsters. With an introduction and annotations by Robert Mezey, this Penguin Classics edition will help readers to recognize Hardy as one of the greatest English poets of this century.