I’m giving away this copy of some of Thomas Hardy’s poems from my personal collection. Thomas Hardy was the author that got me interested in literature so it seemed like a natural choice.
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The giveaway ends on World Poetry Day (March 21) at 11:59 PM (Pacific Time). The winner will be drawn randomly and I will contact you within a few days.
I will ship internationally.
Only 3 days left to enter the giveaway!
Enter the contest for the chance to win this book.
Phantasmal fears, And the flap of the flame, And the throb of the clock, And a loosened slate, And the blind night’s drone, Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!
II
And the blood in my ears Strumming always the same, And the gable-cock With its fitful grate, And myself, alone.
III
The twelfth hour nears Hand-hid, as in shame; I undo the lock, And listen, and wait For the Young Unknown.
IV
In the dark there careers — As if Death astride came To numb all with his knock — A horse at mad rate Over rut and stone.
V
No figure appears, No call of my name, No sound but ‘Tic-toc’ Without check. Past the gate It clatters — is gone.
VI
What rider it bears There is none to proclaim; And the Old Year has struck, And, scarce animate, The New makes moan.
VII
Maybe that ‘More Tears! — More Famine and Flame — More Severance and Shock!’ Is the order from Fate That the Rider speeds on To pale Europe; and tiredly the pines intone.
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 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.
I daresay you think me eccentric, or super-sensitive, or something absurd. Well – why should I suffer for what I was born to be, if it doesn’t hurt other people?
On this kindly yellow day of mild low-travelling winter sun The stirless depths of the yews Are vague with misty blues: Across the spacious pathways stretching spires of shadow run, And the wind-gnawed walls of ancient brick are fired vermilion.
Two or three early sanguine finches tune Some tentative strains, to be enlarged by May or June: From a thrush or blackbird Comes now and then a word, While an enfeebled fountain somewhere within is heard.
Our footsteps wait awhile, Then draw beneath the pile, When an inner court outspreads As ’twere History’s own aisle, Where the now-visioned fountain its attenuate crystal sheds In passive lapse that seems to ignore the yon world’s clamorous clutch, And lays an insistent numbness on the place, like a cold hand’s touch.
And there swaggers the Shade of a straddling King, plumed, sworded, with sensual face, And lo, too, that of his Minister, at a bold self-centred pace: Sheer in the sun they pass; and thereupon all is still, Save the mindless fountain tinkling on with thin enfeebled will.
