Hardy's poetry has the careful articulation of the skeleton in a modern surgical laboratory. But also it has all the atmosphere of the skeleton in old ghostly legends: the sudden visitations, the faint shine and quaver, the lank pointings, the leisurely dissolving in gloom, the telltale streaks of gray on the dark earth and sky, the posturing branches, the summoning voices in the wind. All these are in the weft of his verse. A quizzical reader could assemble therefrom quite an array of theatrical apparitions. But at center his work is far from theatric. It moves with a large sincerity and simplicity.