Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MUSIC IN A SNOWY STREET, by THOMAS HARDY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MUSIC IN A SNOWY STREET, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The weather is sharp
Last Line: For pence, in the snow!


THE weather is sharp,
But the girls are unmoved:
One wakes from a harp,
The next from a viol
A strain that I loved
When life was no trial.

The tripletime beat
Bounds forth on the snow,
But the spry springing feet
Of a century ago,
And the arms that enlaced
As the couples embraced,
Are silent old bones
Under graying gravestones.

The snow-feathers sail
Across the harp-strings,
Whose throbbing threads wail
Like love-satiate things.
Each lyre's grimy mien,
With its rout-raising tune,
Against the new white
Of the flake-laden noon,
Is incongruous to sight,
Hinting years they have seen
Of revel at night
Ere these damsels became
Possessed of their frame.

O bygone whirls, heys,
Crotchets, quavers, the same
That were danced in the days
Of grim Bonaparte's fame,
Or even by the toes
Of the fair Antoinette, --
Yea, old notes like those
Here are living on yet! --
But of their fame and fashion
How little these know
Who strum without passion
For pence, in the snow!





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