Winter in Durnover Field / Thomas Hardy

Winter in Durnover Field 

Scene.--A wide stretch of fallow ground recently sown with wheat, and frozen to iron hardness. Three large birds walking about thereon, and wistfully eyeing the surface. Wind keen from north-east: sky a dull grey.

Rook: Throughout the field I find no grain;
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!
Starling: Aye: patient pecking now is vain
Throughout the field, I find . . .
Rook:                                                    No grain!
Pigeon: Nor will be, comrade, till it rain,
Or genial thawings loose the lorn land
Throughout the field.
Rook:                                I find no grain:
The cruel frost encrusts the cornland!

~~
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
from Poems of the Past and Present, 1901

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Thomas Hardy biography