Tuesday Poem - There's Nothing Like the Sun: Edward Thomas

There's Nothing Like the Sun

There's nothing like the sun as the year dies,
Kind as it can be, this world being made so,
To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,
To all things that it touches except snow,
Whether on mountain side or street of town.
The south wall warms me: November has begun,
Yet never shone the sun as fair as now
While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough
With spangles of the morning's storm drop down
Because the starling shakes it, whistling what
Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot
That there is nothing, too, like March's sun,
Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,
Or January's, or February's, great days:
And August, September, October, and December
Have equal days, all different from November.
No day of any month but I have said -
Or, if I could live long enough, should say -
"There's nothing like the sun that shines today"
There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.


I've just been reading the new biography of Edward Thomas by Matthew Hollis, so I thought a less well-known poem by Thomas might be appropriate, particularly on a wild, wet autumnal day in England when the sun is in very short supply.  But my late, last damsons are still clinging to the branches of the tree.

Edward Thomas wrote this poem when he was in training to go to France, convinced that he would be killed there, but nevertheless, resolved to go.

I've reviewed the biography on my book blog - it comes well-recommended.

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