I don’t know about you but at this time of year my thoughts can become a tad gloomy, morbid even.\u00a0 I know I am not alone in this, whether it’s the missing faces at the family meals; the fact that disruption to routine inevitably finds me staring at a chunk of time with no allotted activity except thinking; or the simple acknowledgement that lack of daylight has very real psychological and physiological implications.<\/p>\n
“In the real dark night of the soul it is always 3 o’clock in the morning.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up<\/em> originally Esquire<\/em> magazine, February 1936<\/p>\n
So, I was quite cheered this morning when perusing one of my poetry books to find this: –<\/p>\n
Cock-Crow<\/strong><\/p>\n
Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night<\/p>\n
To be cut down by the sharp axe of light –<\/p>\n
Out of the night, two cocks together crow,<\/p>\n
Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:<\/p>\n
And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,<\/p>\n
Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,<\/p>\n
Each facing each as in a coat of arms:<\/p>\n
The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n