Friday, June 14, 2013

Follow Friday


Q: Activity: Spine Poetry. Create a line of poetry with your book spines (take a picture). Not feeling creative? Tell us about your favorite poem.

My favorite poem is "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy. It is a poem about a man who is walking through a winter scene both externally and internally and hears a thrush singing in a tree. He asks himself what the bird could possibly be singing about with such joy when everything is so bleak.
I fell in love with it when I first read it, mainly because through my many bouts of depression, I've felt the same thing.

This is the poem:


  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 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.




























14 comments:

Alyssa said...

OH! I love Thomas Hardy! His work is so... haunting, I suppose. Tess was one of his novels - interesting book. That poem is awesome! :D

New Google Plus follower!

Check out my FF post!

Livia @ Butterfly-o-Meter Books said...

Oh yes, a poem after my own heart :D Loved it.

Hope you'll have a great weekend!

Maria's Bookshelf said...

Very nice poem :)
Old follower. Have a magical weekend!
Here's my FF: Maria@Maria's Bookshelf

Ashley said...

I really don't know many poems and I haven't heard of this one before. So glad you shared it with us! =)

Unknown said...

Great poem! I love Hardy's work, especially Tess. New follower via GFC!

My FF:
http://evelinesbooks.blogspot.nl/2013/06/feature-and-follow-friday-2.html

Unknown said...

I love the poem.

New follower via GFC and Google +.

My FF:
http://readingismytreasure.blogspot.com/2013/06/feature-and-follow-friday-1.html

Jessica @ a GREAT read said...

Ooh nice one! Can't recall if I've read this one or not. Read too many poems in my school years so it's hard to place them all!

Here's my Follow Friday

Have a GREAT weekend!

Old Follower :)

BookCupid said...

nice pick. Sad, but it flows really well. Here is my FF Old follower.

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction said...

Such a pretty poem! I'm loving this week's FF! This is the only time that I've made an effort to go and visit ALL of the participants' blogs because I'm so loving reading everyone's poems!!

You can find my poem here.

~Jennifer~ said...

I'd love to have talent to write a gorgeous poem like his. Wow! It evoked beautiful imagery.
Old follower :D
My FF @ Donnie Darko Girl

Unknown said...

So I actually really liked that poem. And Thomas Hardy and I are not friends. LOL.

Thanks for stopping by my FF!

Jessica@Lovin' Los Libros

Meredith said...

I've never heard that poem before. Thanks for sharing :)

Meredith
Meredith’s Musings

Meredith said...

Oh, and I'm a new GFC follower!

Anonymous said...

Hi I'm new to blogging and following thru from Parajunkie's follow friday.

I did do all this on Friday, but stupid me accidentally went and deleted the wrong blog, I lost everything...so here I am starting all over again from scratch... :(

You can follow me back at "SnowRavyn's Reviews"