to one dead – francis ledwidge
A blackbird singing
On a moss-upholstered stone,
Bluebells swinging,
Shadows wildly blown,
A song in the wood,
A ship on the sea.
The song was for you
And the ship was for me.
A blackbird singing
I hear in my troubled mind,
Bluebells swinging
I see in a distant wind.
But sorrow and silence
Are the wood's threnody,
The silence for you
And the sorrow for me.
Found in a slim book – ‘the poetry of World War I’ – the aching loneliness and feeling of a profound and quiet grief is so easily felt upon reading this poem.
A threnody, for those of you who – like me – had no idea what it meant, is a lament: a wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person.
(Thanks, Wikipedia!)
Find out more about Francis Ledwidge here.
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