Poem of the week

The good friends who helped me with my job hunt this summer--and who have helped me with so much more for many years, including my poetry project at PHC--came over the other night to have dinner and "do Christmas." Kind friends that they are, they gave me a little collection of sonnets that I look forward to reading (and, somewhat rudely, started paging through over dessert. I couldn't resist).


Winter Walk
John Clare

The holly bush, a sober lump of green,
Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,
And smiles at winter, be it e'er so keen,
With all the leafy luxury of May.
And oh, it is delicious, when the day
In winter's loaded garment keenly blows
And turns her back on sudden falling snows,
To go where gravel pathways creep between
Arches of evergreen that scarce let through
A single feather of the driving storm;
And in the bitterest day that ever blew
The walk will find some places still and warm
Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm
To little birds that flirt and start away.

From Sonnets From Dante to the Present, ed. John Hollander (New York: Everyman Publishers, 2001), 139.