Poem of the day

'Thaw', by Edward Thomas (OP), written 100 years ago today

The passing of winter and the coming of spring has often inspired poems, from Wordsworth's evocation of the 'first mild day of March' to E.E. Cummings' celebration of 'Just-/spring   when the world is mud-/luscious'. On 10 March 1916 the poet Edward Thomas (OP) was at Hare Hall Camp in Essex, training to fight in the First World War, when he wrote this complete poem:

THAW

Over the land freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as flowers of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.

Anyone interested in finding out more about Thomas might like to read Matthew Hollis's Now All Roads Lead to France - a biography which won the Costa Prize in 2012 and traces Thomas's decision to fight in WW1 (which inspired his friend Robert Frost's poem 'The Road not Taken') and his becoming a poet in the last two years of his life. Thomas is also the guiding, haunting figure of Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways - equally highly recommended. Both books are in the library.

A photo taken at the camp where Thomas wrote the poem. He is in the middle row, second from the left.

The centenary of Thomas's death in the trenches will be in April 1917, so expect to hear more about him then.