Sunday evenings are for writing

It is raining, no...sleeting outside. Despite the crocuses pushing their way up through the grass it is undeniably still winter. Which feels unfair somehow, and difficult, especially when it the weather is unfavourable. Winter makes getting outside a challenge especially after dark.  In fact, everything can seem pretty bleak on days like these. Except! We can write. We can write about the trudge and slog, the cruel wind and the longing for warmer, brighter days. and the unexpected bursts of light and song. Come and join us this evening as we lend our time to cultivating our writing practice. Warm drinks provided.

The Darkling Thrush

Thomas Hardy, 1840 - 1928

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.