How Hardy can it be?

Thomas Hardy lived during the Victorian era, full of change and invention, patriotism and glory. Yet I have found that his poems do not give inklings to any of these; they rejoice in nature, perhaps because he felt the typically British focus on this was being overwhelmed by the wider appeals of the Empire. For this reason, I was reminded on Wordsworth when researching his works, especially the poem I have chosen for today. I do love a bit of Romanticism and Naturalism...

The Fallow Deer at the Lonely House

One without looks in tonight
Through the curtain-chink
From the sheet of glistening white;
One without looks in tonight
As we sit and think
By the fender-brink.

We do not discern those eyes
Watching in the snow;
Lit by lamps of rosy dyes
We do not discern those eyes
Wandering, aglow
Four-footed, tiptoe.

I think I need to do a study of how knowledge of a title affects how you read something and whether the title should be known by the reader before commencing, because I probably would have taken the four-footed creature rather ominously knowing my overactive imagination; it seemed, if not a deer, a were-wolf with rosy eyes of blood lust! I suppose Hardy assumed the reader would know of the title he provided, thus avoiding silly confusion such as mine.

Therefore, what I am finding is that the title sets a calm yet isolated setting and tone to the piece; this place is removed from the rush and hurry of growing London and the animal is as far from exotic as you can get to the Victorian Brit.

From an ecocritc's point of view, there is still, however, separation of the natural world and the human-construct of the house. The deer is 'without', the opposite of 'in', and these two words are separated by the verb 'look', thus Hardy is using iconic phrasing to comment upon the distancing of humanity from nature.

By using the pronoun 'one' to represent the deer, Hardy almost personifies the creature, giving it higher status in the natural world as it performs the exact same action that the humans doing in looking. And by setting the scene in a 'lonely' house at night, which contains a comforting 'fender', but only for the humans, the people seem to be mistreating the deer by neglecting it's intrigue into the house and its inhabitants. The 'sheet of glistening white' is circumlocution for ice, implying that the deer must be very cold and even envying the humans their comfort. This could be validated by the fact that humans, as Hardy reminds us, are above creatures in the fact that they can 'think'.

Yet the word 'aglow' hints that the deer is either (a) warm enough in its natural environment or (b) has a mental fire just as the humans do; it can manage higher thought just as people can. This is supported by the fact that the humans cannot 'discern' the creature, finding fault in human logic when faced with true nature and its power.