Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses

Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses is a collection of poems by English poet Thomas Hardy, and was published in 1922.

While covering a typical (for Hardy) range of subjects - such as mismatchings, grotesqueries, and ironic memories - the poems generally take a musical shape, often remembering the past in ballad format.

[1] Hardy prefaced the collection with a self-styled Apology, beginning prosaically by reporting some half of the poems included as recent, the remainder as old,[2] but continuing with a broader defence of his poetic principles.

Against charges of systematic pessimism, he maintained that his poetry was instead “really a series of fugitive impressions which I have never tried to co-ordinate”.

[3] As if to protest further the charge of pessimism, Hardy opened the collection with the cheerfully lyrical 'Weathers', though he closed it with the self-searching meditation 'Surview'.