Friday, January 30, 2009

Poetry Friday - Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Snow in the Suburbs
by Thomas Hardy

Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.
A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eye
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.
The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.

I posted this poem today at the request of ds (11 - today!). Besides being a favorite poem of his, he wants to know if "inurns" is right or if "inturns" as is in one of our poetry books is correct. Thoughts? Links? Comments? All welcome. : )

Poetry Friday is being hosted today at Adventures in Daily Living.

7 comments:

Yat-Yee said...

Happy birthday to your son. What a thoughtful young man, to not only have a favorite poem but to care about the details.

I really like the poem too BTW.

jenniferknoblock said...

I found it as "inurns" in at least three other places online :)

What great sounds in this poem--and so visual, too. Seems almost playful for Hardy!

Andromeda Jazmon said...

WHat a lovely snow poem! Happy birthday to your ds.

Fiddler said...

Yat-Yee, Jennifer, and Cloudscome, thanks for stopping by. Birthday celebrations took over the day, so I've not had a chance to visit other Poetry Friday entries yet, but I'll be heading on over to see what you've all posted soon!

Kelly said...

I had to look up the word, inurns!
How wonderful that your son has a favorite poem to share!

LB said...

Tell your ds I said "Happy Birthday!"

Odd to think that your oldest and my oldest are 10 years apart (his birthday was Tuesday).

Love the poem. "Inurns" makes sense here; "inturns" does not.

Fiddler said...

Inurns wins--the book of winter poems we have here at home must have a typo. Or I just copied it wrong when I typed it out for him a couple of months ago.

For some reason I remember the word, "inturn" meaning the same thing as "inurn," and now I can't even find the word "inturn," so it's very likely I replaced it without thinking. Nope, just checked--the editor of Winter Poems was under the same impression as I, evidently!