Forsyte monostichs

 

The sunlight  played through the leaves

on that little party of three generations

grouped tranquilly under the pear-tree,

which had long   borne   no fruit.

-- John Galsworthy, The Man of Property (1906)

 

The little garden had fallen into shade,

the sun now only reached the wall,

whereon basked  a crouching cat.

-- ibid

 

the pear-tree, with its

  top

  branches 

still gilded by the sun …

-- ibid

 

Love is no hot-house flower,

but a wild plant,

born of a wet night.

A wild plant that,

when it blooms within the hedge of our gardens,

we call a flower;

and when it blooms outside

we call a weed.

-- ibid

 

for the swarming stars

the night sky

had hardly space.

-- ibid

 

The glow  died

above the river;

the singing  ceased.

The young moon  hid

behind a tree,

and all was dark.

-- ibid

 

Along the pathway of sky

between the hedges of the tree-tops,

the stars  clustered forth.

-- ibid

 

The fog  was worse than ever --

crowned with the weird excrescence of the driver,

haloed by a vague glow of lamp-light

that seemed to drown in vapour

before it reached the pavement…

-- ibid

 

On Irene’s face, a smile wandered up,

and died out

like a flicker of firelight.

-- ibid

 

The wind had got into the sou’west, too --

a delicious air,  sappy!

-- ibid

 

 

Standoff in a railway carriage: Shared Air

London, 1880’s:

 

He had secured the corner seat  next the conductor, where his long legs made it difficult for anyone to get in;  and at all who passed him, he looked resentfully, as if they had no business to be using up his air.

-- John Galsworthy, The Man of Property (1906)

 

(For a contemporaneous picture from Vienna, try this:

https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2014/03/late-arrivals.html )

Impending weather

that baleful and livid tint

predictive of a storm

-- Washington Irving, “Mountjoy”

 

 

There was a queer, lurid sort of sky

over the garden,

though there was a fair amoung of   fitful sunshine

almost as capricious as lightning.

-- G. K. Chesterton, The Paradoxes of Mr Pond (1936)

 

 

The bright  hot  morning

had changed slowly to a grey,

oppressive afternoon;

a heavy bank of clouds,

with the yellow tinge  of coming thunder,

had risen in the south.

The branches of the trees

drooped motionless …

-- John Galsworthy, The Man of Property (1906)