ToDAY'S POEM--BY Edward Thomas

(The Danube, with a few lights from cruisers and buildings reflected on it, as we walked back, tired, to our hotel, eager for supper and a good glass of wine. No owls, though. Only the rush of traffic. But in four days Budapest would be remembering the tragic events of the 1956 Revolt, with long processions of citizens carrying candles along the river.)

For this poem, perhaps some strong black tea? Or a glass of cognac? Anything to warm the bones on a winter night.

The Owl


Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof.

Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl’s cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.

And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered, too, by the bird’s voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

--Edward Thomas

Sent by Gibbons Ruark, who says:

http://www.poetrykit.org/pkl/CITN/citn31.htm

And here, as a purely personal footnote, is a link to a feature on a site in Liverpool which includes my elegy for the beautiful Edward Thomas, published in my first book nearly 40 years ago. He has been one of my touchstones always. I have even had a correspondence with his grandson Edward C. Thomas, who is closely involved with the Edward Thomas Fellowship http://www.edward-thomas-fellowship.org.uk/ , one of the few "fellowships" that truly deserves its name.
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Here is the Gibbons Ruark poem from the site:


A Screech Owl’s Lament for Edward Thomas

Edward, the house is dark
As I begin to hear
What you bring back to me.
Though I am lonely now,
Nights had their loneliness
Before I found your name
In the lists of casualties.
Winter brought me a death
That shook my breath away
For a dear man lost
To anything I say
This side of silence.
Night on night the music
In me was an old hymn
Whose tune I could not carry.
Now though I am troubled
As the lost key rises
In a familiar air,
It would be worse to come
To an end of mourning.

Edward, the snow was deep
When you left for the war
And you and your Helen
Cooied to each other
Through the whitening fog
Till neither one could hear.
This evening in the dusk
Your voices came to me
In the gray dove’s call
Beyond the tulip tree.
For a time that low song
Lasted, and when it died
It made a silence
Deep enough to breathe.

But now in the cold dawn
Comes a sound like the sound
You always listened for
Where you fell in the trenches,
A shivering whistle
Like a small horse whinnying
As he falls from the sky.
The screech owl in the woods
Has left his secret branch
And glided toward me.
Now he floats overhead
Like a ghost of the dark
And lowers to me
His wild descending cry.


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