Friday 22 December 2023

The weakening eye of day


I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to me
The Century’s corpse outleant,
Its crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead,
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited.
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
With blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware
.

- Thomas Hardy

Midwinter, the Shortest Day, the Longest Night, Dongzhi, Makara Sankranti, Yaldā, Yule - it's the Winter Solstice! Look on the bright side - it's all uphill from now on, and Spring will be here before we know it...

4 comments:

  1. I love the poems of Thomas Hardy. I need to find a way of getting " blast-beruffled" into a conversation
    Happy Solstice and the return of the light

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    Replies
    1. I am not a Thomas Hardy fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I do like this one! A couplet such as this just sends shivers down my spine:

      The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres


      Brrr! Roll on Spring. Jx

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    2. I have always loved -
      We stood by a pond that winter day, And the sun was white, as though chidden of God, And a few leaves lay on the starving sod; – They had fallen from an ash, and were grey.

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    3. Ah yes, that starving sod. Always hanging round waiting to be fed... 😉 Jx

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