A Cold, A New Month, A Poem

 I spent the weekend with my cousin amid the floriferous glory of Derbyshire at the turn of summer, with sunshine (much of the time) to heighten the beauty. However, along the way I discovered that, annoyingly, I was developing a stinking cold – which is now, on my return to Lichfield, in full dismal swing, a real Herbert Spencer of a cold. Still more annoyingly, I was supposed to be travelling to Exeter tomorrow to join my walking friends for a few days. Now my best hope is to make the journey on Thursday instead, if this tiresome virus has gone into retreat by then. Here's hoping...
   Meanwhile, I notice that May has become June, and today, the 2nd, is the date on which, in 1840, Thomas Hardy, Wessex's Monarch of Mirth, suffered the terrible fate of being born. Did he have something to say about June? Oh yes, he did, but, being Hardy, his thoughts inevitably turned to autumn – 

June Leaves and Autumn

I

Lush summer lit the trees to green;
But in the ditch hard by
Lay dying boughs some hand unseen
Had lopped when first with festal mien
They matched their mates on high.
It seemed a melancholy fate
That leaves but brought to birth so late
Should rust there, red and numb,
In quickened fall, while all their race
Still joyed aloft in pride of place
With store of days to come.

II

At autumn-end I fared that way,
And traced those boughs fore-hewn
Whose leaves, awaiting their decay
In slowly browning shades, still lay
Where they had lain in June
And now, no less embrowned and curst
Than if they had fallen with the first,
Nor known a morning more,
Lay there alongside, dun and sere,
Those that at my last wandering here
Had length of days in store.


[published in Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles, 1925]