Edward Thomas's Birthday

Edward Thomas's diary entry for 3 March 1917, his 39th birthday:

No post. Morning dull spent in office. But afternoon with Colonel to Achicourt to see O.P.s and then to new battery positions. A chilly day not good for observing. Court of Inquiry on a man burnt with petrol --- Lushington presiding and afterwards I went back with him to 244's new billet and saw my new quarters to be. Wrote to Mother and Helen.

And here, written two years previously, is Thomas's poem, 'March the 3rd':

March the 3rd

Here again (she said) is March the third

And twelve hours singing for the bird

'Twixt dawn and dusk, from half past six

To half past six, never unheard.

'Tis Sunday, and the church-bells end

With the birds' songs. I think they blend

Better than in the same fair days

That shall pronounce the Winter's end.

Do men mark, and none dares say,

How it may shift and long delay,

Somewhere before the first of Spring,

But never fails, this singing day?

When it falls on Sunday, bells

Are a wild natural voice that dwells

On hillsides; but the birds' songs have

The holiness gone from the bells.

This day unpromised is more dear

Than all the named days of the year

When seasonable sweets come in,

Since now we know how lucky we are.