Image for a poem by Ted Hughes
Have You Heard? August 15, 2016
Have you heard of this book? this author? Well I hadn’t heard of the author Jerome Chardyn or the book A Loaded Gun. I had heard of Emily Dickinson, a New England poet of the 19th century. Now I seem to be finding the author and his work and Emily Dickinson references everywhere. I originally ordered the book partly because I was intrigued by the title and I was interested in learning more about this poet. I have been rewarded. It has turned out to be a fascinating read. Now I will turn to a fictional book about Emily Dickinson by the same author.
A Poem For Winter December 16, 2015
A poem by Thomas Hardy
The Darkling Thrush
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 be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his 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,
In 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.
