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Text
In a Churchyard
English source:
Thomas Hardy
‘It is sad that so many of worth,
Still in the flesh,’ soughed the yew,
‘Misjudge their lot whom kindly earth
Secludes from view.
‘They ride their diurnal round
Each day-span’s sum of hours
In peerless ease, without jolt or bound
Or ache like ours.
‘If the living could but hear
What is heard by my roots as they creep
Round the restful flock, and the things said there,
No one would weep.’
‘“Now set among the wise,”
They say: “Enlarged in scope,
That no God trumpet us to rise
We truly hope.”’
I listened to his strange tale
In the mood that stillness brings,
And I grew to accept as the day wore pale
That view of things.
from _While Drawing in a Churchyard_
Still in the flesh,’ soughed the yew,
‘Misjudge their lot whom kindly earth
Secludes from view.
‘They ride their diurnal round
Each day-span’s sum of hours
In peerless ease, without jolt or bound
Or ache like ours.
‘If the living could but hear
What is heard by my roots as they creep
Round the restful flock, and the things said there,
No one would weep.’
‘“Now set among the wise,”
They say: “Enlarged in scope,
That no God trumpet us to rise
We truly hope.”’
I listened to his strange tale
In the mood that stillness brings,
And I grew to accept as the day wore pale
That view of things.
from _While Drawing in a Churchyard_
Composer
Gerald Finzi
Gerald Raphael Finzi was a British composer. He is best known as a choral composer, but also wrote in other genres.
Poet
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly…