Beauty, Then...

My head is empty of new blogworthy ideas, but going round in it still is this poem. Yes, it's that man again - Edward Thomas. Did any poet more vividly express those states of disgruntlement, anger and dejection to which we are all prone (and Thomas more than most)? The way he launches into this one is like the shout of a man slamming the door and striding angrily off, he knows not where. Then the mood abruptly shifts as he glimpses his own absurdity. The wonderfully articulated image of the river ('Cross breezes cut the surface to a file') is the still centre of the poem, slowing and calming it, and making possible the closing flight, 'like a dove That slants unanswering to its home and love', as 'what yet lives in me' finds its peace. 'Beauty is there' indeed.