--Throughout the field I find no grain;
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
Thomas Hardy - Poems of the Past and Present
"They cannot change the Frost's decree,
They cannot keep the skies serene;
How happy days are made to be
"Eludes great Man's sagacity
No less than ours, O tribes in treen!
Men know but little more than we
How happy days are made to be. "
BIRDS AT WINTER NIGHTFALL
(TRIOLET)
AROUND the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! --faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!
MAX GATE.
THE PUZZLED GAME-BIRDS
(TRIOLET)
THEY are not those who used to feed us
When we were young--they cannot be--
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?
They are not those who used to feed us,--
For would they not fair terms concede us?
--If hearts can house such treachery
They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young--they cannot be!
WINTER IN DURNOVER FIELD
SCENE. --A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and
frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, and
wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a dull
grey.
(TRIOLET)
_Rook_.
--Throughout the field I find no grain;
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
_Starling_. --Aye: patient pecking now is vain
Throughout the field, I find . . .
_Rook_. --No grain!
_Pigeon_. --Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,
Or genial thawings loose the lorn land
Throughout the field.
_Rook_. --I find no grain:
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUM
WHY should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.
Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?
It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.
Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season's shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.
