{"id":578,"date":"2010-12-01T15:58:13","date_gmt":"2010-12-01T14:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/?p=578"},"modified":"2010-12-02T22:10:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-02T21:10:17","slug":"the-niveous-stole-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/?p=578","title":{"rendered":"The niveous stole of winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Snow<\/a>
'Frowning wood' and 'the spotless flood' in the High Peak, 1 December 2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>Wednesday’s seasonal weather Word of the Day<\/a> is ‘niveous’. As James Hurdis wrote in The Favourite Village<\/em> in 1800:<\/p>\n

Wakes from its slumber the suspicious eye,
\nAnd bids it look abroad on hill, and dale,
\nCottage, and steeple, in the niveous stole
\nOf Winter trimly dress’d. The silent show’r,
\nPrecipitated still, no breeze disturbs,
\nWhile fine as dust it falls. Deep on the face
\nOf the wide landscape lies the spotless flood
\nAccumulating still, a vast expanse,
\nSave where the frowning wood without a leaf
\nRears its dark branches on the distant hill.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have today’s weather to thank for the inspiration and the Oxford English Dictionary<\/a> for the reference to Hurdis, though strangely it spells the title of his poem Favorite Village<\/em> – which would seem unlikely for a Sussex Clergyman and Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. He’s hardly a household name now, is he? (Does the same fate await today’s holder of this post? Was all that fuss over the election and voluntary de-selection of Ruth Padel<\/a> a waste of time?) <\/p>\n

I had to look up Hurdis in Oxford’s Dictionary of National Biography<\/a>, as there’s precious little about him elsewhere online – thanks again to Derbyshire County Council Libraries<\/a> – long may this cultural blessing last! I cannot resist (ah, near-fatal weakness mine!) including the DNB evaluation of the poet’s character:<\/p>\n

The intensity of Hurdis’s feelings, and his inability to control them, resulted in repeated strife with all but his mother and sisters, by whom alone he seems not to have felt threatened. Indeed, his behaviour in his final years seems to have verged on the deranged.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No wonder he welcomed the silent, obscuring blanket of snow – as did the Poet Laureate, Robert Bridges. My thanks to my friend and colleague Trevor Millum<\/a> for these lines from ‘London Snow’ which he sent me this morning:<\/p>\n

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
\nIn large white flakes falling on the city brown,
\nStealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
\n Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
\nDeadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
\nLazily and incessantly floating down and down:
\n Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
\nHiding difference, making unevenness even,
\nInto angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
\n All night it fell, and when full inches seven
\nIt lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
\nThe clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
\n And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
\nOf the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
\nThe eye marvelled – marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
\n The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
\nNo sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
\nAnd the busy morning cries came thin and spare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Snow<\/a>
'No sound of wheel rumbling', nor even a monk's footfall: Monk's Road, Charlesworth, 1 December 2010<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poetic reflection on the early snow<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[102,22,101,100,28],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","category-words","tag-bridges","tag-laureate","tag-oxford","tag-winter","tag-word-of-the-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.literaryconnections.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}