All the unliving I had loved were flying overhead

Tangle
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

I entered another shelf of poetry books in Librarything today and reached the magic number of 3033. At least it seems magic. I think I am about half done. I've been putting some of the books into the storage locker, which means I might as well pass them on. But I want to enter them all first and see what I have. Working with my shelves today, I discovered some poets I had forgotten about. Miklos Radnoti is one I might mention. Here's a short sample in translation from the Hungarian:

Peace, Dread by Miklos Radnoti

I went out, closed the street door, and the clock struck ten,
on shining wheels the baker rustled by and hummed,
a plane droned in the sky, the sun shone, it struck ten,
I thought of my dead aunt and in a flash it seemed
all the unliving I had loved were flying overhead,
with hosts of silent dead the sky was darkened then
and suddenly across the wall a shadow fell.
Silence. The morning world stood still. The clock struck ten,
over the street peace floated: cold dread was its spell.

--translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederick Turner

The stories of his life and death are riveting.

Auntie Lillian and Gran Marjory as girls

Auntie and Gran as girls
Originally uploaded by jhhymas

This is an example of some of the things I was thinking about yesterday. I scanned this very poor quality photocopy of my father's mother and her sister as girls in a group photo. I think it shows a group at the tail end of the 19th century. I don't have any other photos of her until she was a young woman. I take after that side of the family and look quite a bit like her, as did my father. Squarish face.
So even this low defintion item is very interesting to me. I scanned it on a visit to my mother's place. I like having these things on Flickr, so I can access them anywhere,

Here is an excellent poem by Thomas Hardy which first appeared in print at the tail end of the nineteenth century. It seems like a long time ago to my single life.

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Thomas Hardy