Thomas Hardy - Hap

    The speaker of the poem wishes that God would laugh at his pain so that the speaker would have someone to focus his anger on since God is the cause of his misery in the first place. By the third stanza, the speaker realizes that it is not justified for him to be angry at Gad because he is also the cause of happiness and hope. The third stanza also contains a metaphor comparing happiness to a plant or flower. He describes how happiness is planted in hope and that negative emotions obstruct the metaphorical rain and sun that prevent it from growing. This relates to the poems struggle to determine whether sorrow is controlled by the individual or a higher power. The metaphor is evidence in favor of the human control argument.