1 To summon
2 A conditional if-clause which indicates a situation being unlikely or untrue.
3 "Then I would bear it … " (future in the past)
4 I would hold my teeth and fists tightly and die while being straightened by an undeserved anger.
5 A comparative adjective made up, grammatically inaccurate though, by Hardy to emphasize on the Godliness of that stronger being. Also notice that the word is capitalized for the same reason.
6 When dying, I'd be almost relieved due to the fact that, at least, there has been a godly being punishing with and desiring for my tears.
7 But it is not like that.
8 How would it arrive when joy is dead?
9 Not to bloom.
10 Past participle of "sow" meaning to plant seeds.
11 Obnoxious chance and accident darkens the rain and sun, and the time, while dicing in order to try its chance for pleasure like that of a gambler, causes someone's mournful pain and trouble.
12 The word "purblind" is used equivocally. It means both "unable to understand" and "half-blind."
13 Doomsayer, disaster predictor.
14.An archaic version of "strewn" the past participle of "strew" which means "to spread things over an area."
15 The forecasters of the catastrophe have scattered spiritual happiness on my was as readily as pain.
ANALYSIS
It is accurate enough to say that "Hap" is divided into two parts. The first eight lines settle an unreal condition "if but …"; the sense of accepting a fate, even the darkest one, on condition of finding an axiom, even a "vengeful god" "powerfuller" than the speaker, or something emerged from beyond would suffice on part of the speaker. The speaker only seeks a chance to bear witness to the existence of an ethereal or, better to say, a non-material being. Although the images given about the speaker's un-manifested (unmerited) anger eternally buried with him, an anger by which his body would clench itself and become as stiff as steel (steeled). More to this, the sadistic utterance of the imagined god, is quite striking - the way through which he shows his extreme desire to gain profit from the speaker's loss, and ecstasy from his sorrow. By such grotesque a saying, the speaker actually reveals the limitless lack of sentiment in the real. He's probably trying to reveal that there isn't any chance for even imagining the most hostile respond from a world or a being out there. Neither salvation, nor damnation will call upon mankind.
This theme is empowered in the second part of the poem which takes a role in disavowing the condition given in the first part (But not so …) the speaker directly denies the possibility of meeting any joy or being profited by any hope at length. To him, nature (sun and rain) are led and disturbed by unexpected chance or "Crass Casualty". "Time" is a curio being playfully used to cast a shadow on man's life, including the speaker. As to the speaker's presumable ending, the figurative fortunetellers or "Doomsters" have equally discerned misery and bliss.
Generally speaking, the poem develops the theme of man's hollow, reasonless way towards his destiny. The poem is embodied by a load of words signifying futility, despair, fear, unjustness etc. Nothing is to carry out any hope or reason to live with. That's not so hard to realize that the poem is an artistic means of picturing determinism which could be defined briefly as follows:
In philosophy, theory that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previously existing causes that preclude free will and the possibility that humans could have acted otherwise. The theory holds that the universe is utterly rational because complete knowledge of any given situation assures that unerring knowledge of its future is also possible. (Encyclopedia Britannica Library)
As mentioned above, men do not have any authority over their deeds, status or destiny. Man is, in reality, moment after moment endangered by chance, causality and accident. This is exactly where the poem lends itself to a "deconstructive" reading. That is to say, if man is lead to a preordained point in a given future, then how may he/she be threatened by the accidental nature of "Time"? In other words, if man is left in sheer solitude within a material world fully governed by chance and accident, then how one could imagine an inevitable finale for him/her?
As mentioned by Paul de Man, literary texts may, or may not, have a "self-deconstructive" quality by which they can purify themselves from being ideologically determined. Notwithstanding de Man's claim for such purity, there isn't too firm a ground imaginable for those who deny the paradoxical nature of rhetoric in general and the rhetoric of poetry in particular.
Maryam Akbari