Publishing my Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas in January 1915

 

The 'sprained ankle' poems.

Edward Thomas sprained his ankle at New Year 1915. Confined to bed or a chair, he wrote prolifically.
Two days after the accident Edward wrote The Source and two days after that, The Penny Whistle. Both were inspired by  visits to his friend Vivien Locke Ellis in East Grinstead,
From his notebook:
"3.30pm charcoal burner by blue hut piping slowly a bright old country tune and making it mellow and birdlike in the hollow deep valley."
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     The Penny Whistle
THE new moon hangs like an ivory bugle
In the naked frosty blue;
And the ghylls of the forest, already blackened
By Winter, are blackened anew.
The brooks that cut up and increase the forest,
As if they had never known
The sun, are roaring with black hollow voices
Betwixt rage and a moan.
But still the caravan-hut by the hollies
Like a kingfisher gleams between:
Round the mossed old hearths of the charcoal-burners
First primroses ask to be seen.
The charcoal-burners are black, but their linen
Blows white on the line;
And white the letter the girl is reading
Under that crescent fine;
And her brother who hides apart in a thicket,
Slowly and surely playing
On a whistle an olden nursery melody,
Says far more than I am saying.

From Fotolibrary