THOMAS Hardy contemplates with brevity, but his usual thoughtfulness, the passing on of traits and resemblances from generation to generation.

We all know the truth of this it and how sometimes characteristics jump a generation (or two!) to constitute a kind of immortality.

HEREDITY

I am the family face;

Flesh perishes, I live on,

Projecting trait and trace

Through time to times anon,

And leaping from place to place

Over oblivion.

The years-heired feature that can

In curve and voice and eye

Despise the human span

Of durance - that is I;

The eternal thing in man,

That heeds no call to die.