This is a study of the development of skill and maturity in Hardy's poetry which climaxed in his lyric poems. The author's examination reveals that the lyrics were a synthesis of the traditions of the major Romantic lyric, architectural theory, the late Gothic novel, painting and theories of art, philosophy, the Victorian novel, ballads, theories of the grotesque, the folklore of ghosts, essays on war and traditions of pastoral. Also contributing to this form of poetry, which the author contends was one of the great intellectual and artistic achievements of Victorian and modern times, was Hardy's discovery of the deep connections between the plot of Victorian life and his own, both of which were caught up in 50 year old dreams soon to be interrupted by the realities of 1912-1914. The author also wrote Hardy's Metres And Victorian Prosody.