"The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
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 fervorless 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.
*
"The Sun On The Bookcase" by Thomas Hardy
Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they have fled.
Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day....
But wasted--wasted, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imagined one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done,
Will be mine alway?
Oxford World's Classics
"Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order." - Thomas Hardy
For June, we will be honoring Thomas Hardy as the #ClassicsInContextAuthor of the Month. Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840 at Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester in Dorset. The son of a stonemason, whose family had known better days, his father taught Hardy the violin and his mother greatly encouraged his early interest in books. He attended school in Dorchester and at 16 was articled to John Hicks, a local architect.
Follow us on Twitter @OWC_Oxford to learn more throughout the month!
Harvard University Press
In which Mark Ford imagines discussing his new book, Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner, over lunch in a London pub.
From Wessex with Lunch
In which Mark Ford imagines discussing his new book, Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner, over lunch in a London pub. HARVARDPRESS.TYPEPAD.COM
"The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
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.
When Frost was spectre-gray,
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 fervorless as I.
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 fervorless 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.
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.
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.
*
"The Sun On The Bookcase" by Thomas Hardy
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
And dusk grow strong
And they have fled.
Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day....
But wasted--wasted, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imagined one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
My great deeds done,
Will be mine alway?
Oxford World's Classics
"Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order." - Thomas Hardy
For June, we will be honoring Thomas Hardy as the #ClassicsInContextAuthor of the Month. Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840 at Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester in Dorset. The son of a stonemason, whose family had known better days, his father taught Hardy the violin and his mother greatly encouraged his early interest in books. He attended school in Dorchester and at 16 was articled to John Hicks, a local architect.
Follow us on Twitter @OWC_Oxford to learn more throughout the month!
Harvard University Press
In which Mark Ford imagines discussing his new book, Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner, over lunch in a London pub.
From Wessex with Lunch
In which Mark Ford imagines discussing his new book, Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner, over lunch in a London pub. HARVARDPRESS.TYPEPAD.COM
