A Hard Frost

Claude Monet

A Hard Frost

A frost came in the night and stole my world

And left this changeling for it - a precocious

Image of spring, too brilliant to be true:

White lilac on the window-pane, each grass-blade

Furred like a catkin, maydrift loading the hedge.

The elms behind the house are elms no longer

But blossomers in crystal, stems of the mist

That hangs yet in the valley below, amorphous

As the blind tissue whence creation formed.

The sun looks out and the fields blaze with diamonds

Mockery spring, to lend this bridal gear

For a few hours to a raw country maid,

Then leave her all disconsolate with old fairings

Of aconite and snowdrop! No, not here

Amid this flounce and filigree of death

Is the real transformation scene in progress,

But deep below where frost

Worrying the stiff clods unclenches their

Grip on the seed and lets

the future breathe.

C. Day Lewis

 "But deep below..." How wonderful, the description of frost, the crust of iridescence like a cruelly beautiful shell, "but deep below", in the dark and cold, life is beginning again, in spite of all appearances and obstacles. 


 

Montague Dawson

The Conflict

I sang as one
Who on a tilting deck sings
To keep their courage up, though the wave hangs
That shall cut off their sun.

As storm-cocks sing,
Flinging their natural answer in the wind’s teeth,
And care not if it is waste of breath
Or birth-carol of spring.

As ocean-flyer clings
To height, to the last drop of spirit driving on
While yet ahead is land to be won
And work for wings.

Singing I was at peace,
Above the clouds, outside the ring:
For sorrow finds a swift release in song
And pride in poise.

Yet living here,
As one between two massive powers I live
Whom neutrality cannot save
Nor occupation cheer.

None such shall be left alive:
The innocent wing is soon shot down,
And private stars fade in the blood-red dawn
Where two worlds strive.

The red advance of life
Contracts pride, calls out the common blood,
Beats song into a single-blade,
Makes a depth-charge of grief.

Move then with new desires,
For where we used to build and love
Is no man’s land, and only ghosts can live
Between two fires.


Cecil Day-Lewis

That resolve to sing, even if it's "a waste of breath", and "sorrow finds a sweet release in song" is compelling. Singing and working forward rather than sorrowing and looking back. "Singing I was at peace" - that line comforts me.