Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Everybody Loves a Wet Blanket


And is there any comforter soggier than Thomas Hardy?




Neutral Tones
Thomas Hardy


We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
     --They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.


Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
     On which lost the more by our love.


The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
     Like an ominous bird a-wing....


Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
     And a pond edged with grayish leaves.




It seems like the perfect winter poem: depressive, pretty and inconsolable. I especially love, "The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing / Alive enough to have strength to die." That's either the kiss-off to end them all or a prelude to some contract killing in an Elmore Leonard book. Maybe both, in a Frank Miller "Sin City" way.


I also find it fascinating how clearly I can see the pond, probably my own amalgamation of western Massachusetts foliage and northern Virginia creek with a tinge of eastern Europe grey. Hardy is so blissed out on his own unhappiness, "Neutral Tones" is worth an entire MySpace of "I'm sad and I hate the cold" prose-with-funny-spacing.


But really, the Internets said it best:


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