A HAWTHORN BERRY
How sweet a thought,
How strange a deed,
To house such glory in a seed -
A berry, shining rufously,
Like scarlet coral in the sea!
A berry, rounder than ring,
So round, it harbours everything;
So red, that all the blood of men
Could never paint it so again.
And, as I hold it in my hand,
A fragrance steals across the land:
Rich, on the wintry heaven, I see
A white, immortal hawthorn-tree.
Mary Webb
Lovely pic of hawthorn rich in berry - and thankyou for reminidng me of the beauty of Mary Webb's work.
ReplyDeleteI have just come inside from the fields, where hawthorn berries are at their ripest in the hedges. Blackbirds and thrushes are feasting and squabbling over the best of them.
ReplyDeleteAnother beautiful Mary Webb poem, thank you.
Thanks for the alert re Warbler's posts---blogger is not doing its job!
ReplyDeleteWe don't know how to mend it either! Suggestions?
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely poem about such a simple thing. Those berries are well ripe here in North Yorkshire and the fieldfares are moving in to remove them all in double quick time.
ReplyDeleteThis so sums up my feelings about the Hawthorn, so often overlooked, but once seen, forever cherished :)
ReplyDeleteTruly a poem for fall...and a lovely photograph to go along with it.
ReplyDelete