It's St Lucy's day, which John Donne appeared to think is the shortest day (I don't think it is). His Nocturnal upon St Lucy's Day is a wonderful poem, though. I love the line "The world's whole sap is sunk". Oddly enough, it doesn't feel like that at the moment, with bright sun and blue sky.

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/nocturnal.htm

I missed your post yesterday, Mary, and I didn't even realise it had been St Lucy's Day (or St Lucie's Day, as Donne might have spelt it). One of my favourite poems!

I also very much love this one, also by John Donne, although I think I may have posted it before:


The Anniversary

      All kings, and all their favourites,
      All glory of honours, beauties, wits,
The sun it self, which makes time, as they pass,
Is elder by a year now than it was
When thou and I first one another saw.
All other things to their destruction draw,
      Only our love hath no decay;
This no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday;
Running it never runs from us away,
But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day.

      Two graves must hide thine and my corse;
      If one might, death were no divorce.
Alas! as well as other princes, we
—Who prince enough in one another be—
Must leave at last in death these eyes and ears,
Oft fed with true oaths, and with sweet salt tears;
      But souls where nothing dwells but love
—All other thoughts being inmates—then shall prove
This or a love increasèd there above,
When bodies to their graves, souls from their graves remove.

      And then we shall be throughly blest;
      But now no more than all the rest.
Here upon earth we're kings, and none but we
Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be.
Who is so safe as we? where none can do
Treason to us, except one of us two.
      True and false fears let us refrain,
Let us love nobly, and live, and add again
Years and years unto years, till we attain
To write threescore; this is the second of our reign.

Here's one from Heine.

Doch die Kastraten klagten,
Als ich meine Stimm' erhob;
Sie klagten und sie sagten:
Ich sänge viel zu grob.
Und lieblich erhoben sie alle
Die kleinen Stimmelein,
Die Trillerchen, wie Kristalle,
Sie klangen so fein und rein.

Sie sangen von Liebessehnen,
Von Liebe und Liebeserguß;
Die Damen schwammen in Tränen
Bei solchem Kunstgenuß.

Yes, but in his day England was still on the Julian calendar which was some ten days out of sync with the solar year, so 13 December probably would be the shortest day.

By the time Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in the 1750s, it was 11 days out.

And Friday was St John of the Cross's Day.

Ah, DonB to the rescue as ever.

I decided this must be the case over the weekend. Good to have it confirmed.

It made me smile, too. Thanks, Catherine. And I'm glad you've enjoyed the thread!

This one probably isn't designed to make anyone smile, but I love it very much:


Ovid in the Third Reich by Geoffrey Hill

    non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare,
    solaque famosam culpa professa facit.
        —(Amores, III, xiv)

I love my work and my children. God
Is distant, difficult. Things happen.
Too near the ancient troughs of blood
Innocence is no earthly weapon.

I have learned one thing: not to look down
So much on the damned. They, in their sphere,
Harmonize strangely with the divine
Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.

The Kriwet is quite, quite beautiful, Mr Grew. Thank you for that!

I wanted to end the year with (surprise surprise) another Thom Gunn poem:

          In Trust

      You go from me
    In June for months on end
  To study equanimity
    Among high trees alone;
  I go out with a new boyfriend
And stay all summer in the city where
    Home mostly on my own
    I watch the sunflowers flare.

      You travel East
    To help your relatives.
  The rainy season's start, at least,
    Brings you from banishment:
  And from the hall a doorway gives
A glimpse of you, writing I don't know what,
    Through winter, with head bent
    In the lamp's yellow spot.

      To some fresh task
    Some improvising skill
  Your face is turned, of which I ask
    Nothing except the presence:
  Beneath white hair your clear eyes still
Are candid as the cat's fixed narrowing gaze
    - Its pale-blue incandescence
    In your room nowadays.

      Sociable cat:
    Without much noise or fuss
  We left the kitchen where he sat,
    And suddenly we find
  He happens still to be with us,
In this room now, though firmly faced away,
    Not to be left behind,
    Though all the night he'll stray.

      As you began
    You'll end the year with me.
  We'll hug each other while we can,
    Work or stray while we must.
  Nothing is, or ever will be,
Mine, I suppose. No one can hold a heart,
    But what we hold in trust
    We do hold, even apart.