Thomas Hardy's "Hap" and "Neutral Tones"

I interpreted Thomas Hardy’s “Hap” as an approach to question religion and God, for that matter, and that he believes the universe is controlled by sheer chance and isn’t due to a higher being.  If there was a God, then there is no way that evil would occur due to perhaps punishment.  It would be brought on by chance.  Also, if God does exist, why would He allow such evils?  The first stanza is evident of Hardy’s lack of belief in God by not capitalizing the ‘g’ in God.  This expresses that he fails to believe in a higher being.  He also states that people allow themselves to come to terms with the suffering they’ve endured by believing in something that is much more powerful than anything they’ve ever known; they are comforted by the idea that God knows they have suffered and He will ease such pain:  “Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I had willed and meted me the tears I shed.”  Hardy’s poem “Neutral Tones”, to me, is about the ending of a long and tiresome relationship.  The standard tone in Hardy’s poems is “a man meditating on his losses, surrounding by ghost of what he has loved or hoped for” (Ramazani 44), and this poem is no exception.  The title signifies that there is no color in Hardy’s life; no love.  The nature of the relationship is also evident in the tenth line.  The dead smile may support that there is no longer any happiness being sustained within the relationship.