Edward Thomas's 'sprained ankle' poems - Over the Hills and The Lofty Sky.The titles say it all, don't they. I feel I haven't taken seriously enough just what an ordeal it must have been for Thomas being confined to the house. I myself need to get out of doors a great deal, but for him it was sometimes life-saving.
These two poems are again about remembering. The first concerns remembering remembering, but he encounters some problem, some flaw in the memory or in himself, implying that it is impossible to go back - in reality or just in full memory I don't know. Longley recommends we look carefullt at the line-breaks.
The Lofty Sky has a vibrant rhythm and energy - pent-up energy. Edna Longley sees it as having a strong Romantic theme.
To-day I want the sky,
The tops of the high hills,
Above the last man's house,
His hedges, and his cows,
Where, if I will, I look
Down even on sheep and rook,
And of all things that move
See buzzards only above:-
Past all trees, past furze
And thorn, where nought deters
The desire of the eye
For sky, nothing but sky.
I sicken of the woods
And all the multitudes
Of hedge-trees. They are no more
Than weeds upon this floor
Of the river of air
Leagues deep, leagues wide, where
I am like a fish that lives
In weeds and mud and gives
What's above him no thought.
I might be a tench for aught
That I can do to-day
Down on the wealden clay.
Even the tench has days
When he floats up and plays
Among the lily leaves
And sees the sky, or grieves
Not if he nothing sees:
While I, I know that trees
Under that lofty sky
Are weeds, fields mud, and I
Would arise and go far
To where the lilies are.Edward Thomas's 'sprained ankle' poems - Over the Hills and The Lofty Sky.
The titles say it all, don't they. I feel I haven't taken seriously enough just what an ordeal it must have been for Thomas being confined to the house. I myself need to get out of doors a great deal, but for him it was sometimes life-saving.
These two poems are again about remembering. The first concerns remembering remembering, but he encounters some problem, some flaw in the memory or in himself, implying that it is impossible to go back - in reality or just in full memory I don't know. Longley recommends we look carefullt at the line-breaks.
The Lofty Sky has a vibrant rhythm and energy - pent-up energy. Edna Longley sees it as having a strong Romantic theme.
To-day I want the sky,
The tops of the high hills,
Above the last man's house,
His hedges, and his cows,
Where, if I will, I look
Down even on sheep and rook,
And of all things that move
See buzzards only above:-
Past all trees, past furze
And thorn, where nought deters
The desire of the eye
For sky, nothing but sky.
I sicken of the woods
And all the multitudes
Of hedge-trees. They are no more
Than weeds upon this floor
Of the river of air
Leagues deep, leagues wide, where
I am like a fish that lives
In weeds and mud and gives
What's above him no thought.
I might be a tench for aught
That I can do to-day
Down on the wealden clay.
Even the tench has days
When he floats up and plays
Among the lily leaves
And sees the sky, or grieves
Not if he nothing sees:
While I, I know that trees
Under that lofty sky
Are weeds, fields mud, and I
Would arise and go far
To where the lilies are.Edward Thomas's 'sprained ankle' poems - Over the Hills and The Lofty Sky.
The titles say it all, don't they. I feel I haven't taken seriously enough just what an ordeal it must have been for Thomas being confined to the house. I myself need to get out of doors a great deal, but for him it was sometimes life-saving.
These two poems are again about remembering. The first concerns remembering remembering, but he encounters some problem, some flaw in the memory or in himself, implying that it is impossible to go back - in reality or just in full memory I don't know. Longley recommends we look carefullt at the line-breaks.
The Lofty Sky has a vibrant rhythm and energy - pent-up energy. Edna Longley sees it as having a strong Romantic theme.
To-day I want the sky,
The tops of the high hills,
Above the last man's house,
His hedges, and his cows,
Where, if I will, I look
Down even on sheep and rook,
And of all things that move
See buzzards only above:-
Past all trees, past furze
And thorn, where nought deters
The desire of the eye
For sky, nothing but sky.
I sicken of the woods
And all the multitudes
Of hedge-trees. They are no more
Than weeds upon this floor
Of the river of air
Leagues deep, leagues wide, where
I am like a fish that lives
In weeds and mud and gives
What's above him no thought.
I might be a tench for aught
That I can do to-day
Down on the wealden clay.
Even the tench has days
When he floats up and plays
Among the lily leaves
And sees the sky, or grieves
Not if he nothing sees:
While I, I know that trees
Under that lofty sky
Are weeds, fields mud, and I
Would arise and go far
To where the lilies are.Edward Thomas's 'sprained ankle' poems - Over the Hills and The Lofty Sky.
The titles say it all, don't they. I feel I haven't taken seriously enough just what an ordeal it must have been for Thomas being confined to the house. I myself need to get out of doors a great deal, but for him it was sometimes life-saving.
These two poems are again about remembering. The first concerns remembering remembering, but he encounters some problem, some flaw in the memory or in himself, implying that it is impossible to go back - in reality or just in full memory I don't know. Longley recommends we look carefullt at the line-breaks.
The Lofty Sky has a vibrant rhythm and energy - pent-up energy. Edna Longley sees it as having a strong Romantic theme.
To-day I want the sky,
The tops of the high hills,
Above the last man's house,
His hedges, and his cows,
Where, if I will, I look
Down even on sheep and rook,
And of all things that move
See buzzards only above:-
Past all trees, past furze
And thorn, where nought deters
The desire of the eye
For sky, nothing but sky.
I sicken of the woods
And all the multitudes
Of hedge-trees. They are no more
Than weeds upon this floor
Of the river of air
Leagues deep, leagues wide, where
I am like a fish that lives
In weeds and mud and gives
What's above him no thought.
I might be a tench for aught
That I can do to-day
Down on the wealden clay.
Even the tench has days
When he floats up and plays
Among the lily leaves
And sees the sky, or grieves
Not if he nothing sees:
While I, I know that trees
Under that lofty sky
Are weeds, fields mud, and I
Would arise and go far
To where the lilies are.
To where the lilies are.Edward Thomas's 'sprained ankle' poems - Over the Hills and The Lofty Sky.
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