Red Dirt Ramblings®

Firmly rooted in the Oklahoma soil

Garden Bloggers’ Muse Day: At the Entering of the New Year

Pinecones seen at Iseli Nursery in Oregon
Pinecones seen at Iseli Nursery in Oregon

At the Entering of the New Year

by Thomas Hardy

I (Old Style)

Our songs went up and out the chimney,
And roused the home-gone husbandmen;
Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,
Our hands-across and back again,
Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements
On to the white highway,
Where nighted farers paused and muttered,
“Keep it up well, do they!”
The contrabasso’s measured booming
Sped at each bar to the parish bounds,
To shepherds at their midnight lambings,
To stealthy poachers on their rounds;
And everybody caught full duly
The notes of our delight,
As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise
Hailed by our sanguine sight.

Water girl framed by two pines (Iseli Nursery)
Water girl framed by two pines (Iseli Nursery)

II (New Style)

We stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb,
As if to give ear to the muffled peal,
Brought or withheld at the breeze’s whim;
But our truest heed is to words that steal
From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray,
And seems, so far as our sense can see,
To feature bereaved Humanity,
As it sighs to the imminent year its say:—

“O stay without, O stay without,
Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired;
Though stars irradiate thee about
Thy entrance here is undesired.
Open the gate not, mystic one;
Must we avow what we would close confine?
With thee, good friend, we would have converse none,
Albeit the fault may not be thine.”

Happy New Year to all my friends.
For more reflections on this first day of the new year, please trip on over to Sweet Home and Garden Chicago, where Garden Bloggers’ Muse Day is sponsored by the lovely Carolyn Gail.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Sue

    Hi Dee,

    I recently spent time in OK for work. Wow, do y’all have good roses!

    What a great blog. Email me when you come back east-I’m in Charleston. We have roses too!

    I would love to come to Charleston. When I do, I will call you. Would love to see your roses too.~~Dee

  3. Sherry

    Dear Dee,
    Happy New Year.
    I love the pines….
    I can almost smell these.
    Looking forward to 2009 and getting to know you and your gardens.
    Namaste,
    Sherry

    Sherry´s last blog post..Beautiful Blues

    Thank you and Happy New Year to you too.~~Dee

  4. Helen/patientgardener

    I dont as a rule like conifers or pines – they bring me out in a rash but your photos are very appealing.

    Hi Helen, I understand. Cedars bother me terribly. Hate ’em. Happy New Year.~~Dee

  6. Lisa at Greenbow

    These photos and verse make me miss my pine trees so much. We don’t even think we can replant them because the pine bark beetles are at work in this region. WHINE… Lovely post I didn’t mean to spill whine all over it.

  7. Alauar Parrish

    Hey Dee; Love the photos the one with the statue in the pines is so beautiful.

    Hope you have a Blessed New Year.

    Hi Alauar, I hope yours is blessed too. Thank you.~~Dee