[poem of the day from
Poetry Foundation.org]
The Thrush
When Winter's ahead,
What can you read in November
That you read in April
When Winter's dead?
I hear the thrush, and I see
Him alone at the end of the lane
Near the bare poplar's tip,
Singing continuously.
Is it more that you know
Than that, even as in April,
So in November,
Winter is gone that must go?
Or is all your lore
Not to call November November,
And April April,
And Winter Winter—no more?
But I know the months all,
And their sweet names, April,
May and June and October,
As you call and call
I must remember
What died into April
And consider what will be born
Of a fair November;
And April I love for what
It was born of, and November
For what it will die in,
What they are and what they are not,
While you love what is kind,
What you can sing in
And love and forget in
All that's ahead and behind.
Edward Thomas 1878–1917
[PF says:
Thomas wrote his first poems in 1914 at the urging of the American poet Robert Frost,
with whom he forged a friendship during Frost's years in England. ….
in 1915 he enlisted in the infantry and was killed two years later in the Battle of Arras,
while the first edition of his Poems (1917) was being prepared for press.]
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