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These observations about Hardy's productivity tally with the details of his life as we know them.

The first productive period came when he was considering poetry as a vocation, before he had decided to write fiction for a living ( in his note for Who's Who he wrote that he `` wrote verses 1865 - 1868 ; ;

gave up verse for prose, 1868 - 70 ; ;

but resumed it later '' ).

During the poetically sterile years he was writing novels at the rate of almost one a year and was, in addition, burdened with bad health ( he spent six months in bed in 1881, too ill to do more than work slowly and painfully at A Laodicean ).

Two entries in The Early Life support the assumption that during this period Hardy had virtually suspended the writing of poetry.

Mrs. Hardy records that `` at the end of November ( 1881 ) he makes a note of an intention to resume poetry as soon as possible '' ( Early Life, p. 188 ) ; ;

and on Christmas Day, 1890, Hardy wrote: `` While thinking of resuming ' the viewless Wings Of Poesy before dawn this morning, new horizons seemed to open, and worrying pettinesses to disappear '' ( Early Life, p. 302 ).

There are more poems dated in the 1890's than in the '80's -- Hardy had apparently resumed the viewless wings as he decreased the volume of his fiction -- but none in 1891, the year of Tess, and only one in 1895, the year of Jude.

After 1895 the number increases, and in the next thirty years there is only one year for which there is no dated poem -- 1903, when Hardy was at work on The Dynasts.