‘It is Stonehenge.’
‘The heathen temple, you mean?’

It raises a laugh,
that extract from Tess
about ‘some vast erection
close in his front, rising’

but you almost feel
Hardy was cocking
a snook as in a ‘stiff
breeze’ and ‘gropingly’,

he wields innuendo
like the bludgeon
in the Cerne Abbas
giant’s hand.

 

John Greening