Poetry is under-represented on this blog and in my reading generally, and I thought to address that by buying the doorstop-sized The 20th Century in Poetry
"Our aim has been to allow the poems to tell the stories of the century, both public and private," say the editors, "...[and] to offer pleasures, both simple and complex ...". I'm going to be working my way through, perhaps reading just a poem a day, but taking my time.
The book begins, of course, in 1900 with The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy:
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.
There is a commentary on the poem here.
The book gets off to a good start!
Posted by: Barbara | 17 August 2013 at 07:24 AM
It does indeed.
Posted by: Cornflower | 17 August 2013 at 08:49 AM
Touching, moving poem. I can see it. Thank you for sharing this!
Posted by: ElseT | 22 August 2013 at 07:08 PM