The Wren: an extract

An edited extract from the ‘November’ chapter of Stephen Moss’s ‘The Wren: A Biography’, published by Square Peg:

Thomas Hood, the nineteenth-century poet and humourist, got it pretty well right when he wrote this short, sharp verse about the year’s penultimate month:

No sun – no moon!
No morn – no noon –
No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! –
November!

Read more:  Caught by the River