The Nature of Things

Blessings on all the winter birds who cheer us with their "full-hearted evensongs" flung "upon the growing gloom." Hope is scarce on the ground at the moment and we need that cheer.  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 a...