Could have been a misspelling of 'inconsequent'.someonehairy-ish said:
OT: I like a lot of the stuff I get for school. However some of the Thomas Hardy poems I read last year were pretty shocking. The most memorable was this one poem called 'The Haunter'. Basically Hardy's wife, Emma, had just died - and it hit him pretty hard. Understandable, you'd think, and I'd agree, were it not for the fact that he'd marginalised and ignored her for almost the entirety of their marriage, treating her like a servant and forcing her to stay in the attic. Pretty shit life. Anyway after she dies he just starts moping and writing all these poems about how great and strong their love was, and how much he misses her and wishes he were still there. Even up to here it's understandable. But then he has the rank audacity to write this piece of tosh, which he narrates from her perspective basically saying how even past the veil of death she still dotes on him and follows him around and yearns for his attention cos he was so manly and awesome. Seriously. Fuck this shit:
He does not think that I haunt here nightly:
How shall I let him know
That whither his fancy sets him wandering
I, too, alertly go? -
Hover and hover a few feet from him
Just as I used to do,
But cannot answer the words he lifts me ?
Only listen thereto!
When I could answer he did not say them:
When I could let him know
How I would like to join in his journeys
Seldom he wished to go.
Now that he goes and wants me with him
More than he used to do,
Never he sees my faithful phantom
Though he speaks thereto.
Yes, I companion him to places
Only dreamers know,
Where the shy hares print long paces,
Where the night rooks go;
Into old aisles where the past is all to him,
Close as his shade can do,
Always lacking the power to call to him,
Near as I reach thereto!
What a good haunter I am, O tell him,
Quickly make him know
If he but sigh since my loss befell him
Straight to his side I go.
Tell him a faithful one is doing
All that love can do
Still that his path may be worth pursuing,
And to bring peace thereto.
How shall I let him know
That whither his fancy sets him wandering
I, too, alertly go? -
Hover and hover a few feet from him
Just as I used to do,
But cannot answer the words he lifts me ?
Only listen thereto!
When I could answer he did not say them:
When I could let him know
How I would like to join in his journeys
Seldom he wished to go.
Now that he goes and wants me with him
More than he used to do,
Never he sees my faithful phantom
Though he speaks thereto.
Yes, I companion him to places
Only dreamers know,
Where the shy hares print long paces,
Where the night rooks go;
Into old aisles where the past is all to him,
Close as his shade can do,
Always lacking the power to call to him,
Near as I reach thereto!
What a good haunter I am, O tell him,
Quickly make him know
If he but sigh since my loss befell him
Straight to his side I go.
Tell him a faithful one is doing
All that love can do
Still that his path may be worth pursuing,
And to bring peace thereto.
I found the idea that she would still crave his love and his sympathy so much even after he ignored her right up to the moment of her death pretty rank and almost sordid in a way. Great writer, and often a great poet, but jesus what a dick.