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Melynda et. al.<BR>
<BR>
I read this poem once, twice and again and again. It is most hopeful, it seems to me! Were you being ironic? It is hopeful for the inspiration that a single tiny living being living a wild life can inspire in the heart of one human being. Did I miss something, or read something into the poem not really there? Or do you mean that "if we're of less hopeful fiber" we need the message in this poem, if you want to call it that?<BR>
<BR>
Ted Moffett<BR>
<BR>
or, if we're of less hopeful fiber, we might try Thomas Hardy:<BR>
<BR>
I leant upon a coppice gate <BR>
When Frost was spectre-gray, <BR>
And Winter's dregs made desolate <BR>
The weakening eye of day. <BR>
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky <BR>
Like strings of broken lyres, <BR>
And all mankind that haunted nigh <BR>
Had sought their household fires. <BR>
<BR>
The land's sharp features seemed to be <BR>
The Century's corpse outleant, <BR>
His crypt the cloudy canopy, <BR>
The wind his death-lament. <BR>
The ancient pulse of germ and birth <BR>
Was shrunken hard and dry, <BR>
And every spirit upon earth <BR>
Seemed fervourless as I. <BR>
<BR>
At once a voice arose among <BR>
The bleak twigs overhead <BR>
In a full-hearted evensong <BR>
Of joy illimited; <BR>
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, <BR>
In blast-beruffled plume, <BR>
Had chosen thus to fling his soul <BR>
Upon the growing gloom. <BR>
<BR>
So little cause for carolings <BR>
Of such ecstatic sound <BR>
Was written on terrestrial things <BR>
Afar or nigh around, <BR>
That I could think there trembled through <BR>
His happy good-night air <BR>
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew <BR>
And I was unaware. <BR>
<BR>
Poetically yours,<BR>
<BR>
Melynda Huskey<BR>
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