March 3rd, Edward Thomas' s Birthday.
The Edward Thomas Fellowship walk in celebration of ET's birthday was a great success- numbers greater than ever and a wider range of ages.
The highlight for me was being able to visit the garden to the side and back of the TYhomas's cottage and take photographs. The rain held off until late afternoon by which time we were in Steep Church for tea , the AGM and the Tribute to Thomas. It's good to see the newly restored window.
Some photos from the day- Monty our dog features often.
It had been raining! The usually little waterfall floods the road instead of going beneath it.
Yew Tree Cottage, Steep - the back door.
The last leg.
The replaced window and the vandalised one.
Yew Tree again- the rear window downstairs was Edward's 'home' study.
The Poem - of course -
March the Third.
'As a birthday poem written shortly before Easter, March the Third subverts Christian celebration by making 'holy' and 'wild' interchangeable. A draft of lines 15-16 likens the birds' songs to canticles. Thomas was dissatisfied with the poem:"Perhaps I shall be able to mend March the Third. I know it must either be mended or ended." ' Edna Longley.
There is another March poem to come.
Here again (she said) is March the third
And twelve hours singing for the bird
'Twixt dawn and dusk, from half past six
To half past six, never unheard.
'Tis Sunday, and the church-bells end
When the birds do. I think they blend
Now better than they will when passed
Is this unnamed, unmarked godsend.
Or do all mark, and none dares say,
How it may shift and long delay,
Somewhere before the first of Spring,
But never fails, this singing day?
And when it falls on Sunday, bells
Are a wild natural voice that dwells
On hillsides; but the birds' songs have
The holiness gone from the bells.
This day unpromised is more dear
Than all the named days of the year
When seasonable sweets come in,
Because we know how lucky we are.
. It's rather intriguing that the 3rd March, unnamed - he means in the Christian calendar - is the big day for Edward Thomas enthusiasts, pagans, Christians, of any or no faith at all.
NEWS
There is an Edward Thomas Fellowship Facebook site, going strong already. It is a closed group for members - but membership is easy and inexpensive. See edwardthomasfellowship.org.uk
StreetBooks is reprinting A Conscious Englishman, to be ready by late March. I'm pleased for two reasons - it will carry Robert Macfarlane's kind 'blurb' along with others, and it will eliminate the errors which I'm sorry to say I missed first time around and which have embarrassed me hugely.
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