You can’t write about gloomy poets without mentioning Thomas Hardy. He is reliably gloomy on most subjects, so when he turns to greenhouses we know what we’re in for.
The memory roots of this one are in Cornwall, where Hardy met his first wife, Emma. The guilt he felt for his treatment of Emma after she died fuelled his later poetry as well as this return to St Juliot.

The Frozen Greenhouse
(St Juliot)
‘There was a frost
Last night!’ she said,
‘And the stove was forgot
When we went to bed,
And the greenhouse plants
Are frozen dead!’
By the breakfast blaze
Blank-faced spoke she,
Her scared young look
Seeming to be
The very symbol
Of tragedy.
The frost is fiercer
Than then to-day,
As I pass the place
Of her once dismay,
But the greenhouse stands
Warm, tight, and gay,
While she who grieved
At the sad lot
Of her pretty plants -
Cold, iced, forgot -
Herself is colder,
And knows it not.
I'm up for some more Gloomy Greenhouse Poet suggestions if you have them. Or Jolly Greenhouse Poets if you'd rather.
Commentaires