Some Blessed Hope

The Darkling Thrush By Thomas Hardy (1902) 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.

This was written in 1900, as a scared look at the dawn of the twentieth century.  He was right to be scared, the twentieth century was a horrifying one in many ways, as the rise of "isms" led to the death of millions.  And yet, there were some wonderful things that came along, too; not least the landing on the moon, and the amazing progress in medicine, and the invention of the computer and other technology.

Christmas was even better than I’d hoped.  I got lots of really neat gifts, and my own giving seemed to be unusually welcome.  An example: Tanya stitched and framed my favorite literary jest, from Fred Allen: “I don’t know why anyone would write a book when for a few dollars she could buy one.”  How often, when struggling with a plot, I’ve sighed that!

Today I begin the research into a gay wedding.  It’ll be the subplot of the next novel and therefore it’s safe to begin working on it.  Godwin and Rafael’s wedding – Goddy wants wild extravagance; Rafael wants dignity and decorum.  Who will win?