It was a cold, dark, dismal sort of monochrome day, with a bitterly chilling, battering wind, and Algy felt that not only was it not a fit day out "for man nor beast", but even a fluffy bird would be hard put to find anything to commend in it…
Seeking shelter from the biting, icy blasts that cut right through his fluffy feathers, Algy flew into a nearby patch of woodland where the hill sloped away from the prevailing wind, and tucked himself under the upturned stump of a tree which had fallen some years ago in a winter storm.
Although he could hardly say that he felt warm, Algy found that he was a great deal more comfortable in this wee refuge, and he soon began to relax. Observing a sheep looking rather miserable in the croft close by, he started to recite to it:
Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain no more; for these, O heart, Direct the random of the will As rhymes direct the rage of art. The lute's fixt fret, that runs athwart The strain and purpose of the string, For governance and nice consort Doth bar his wilful wavering. The dark hath many dear avails; The dark distils divinest dews; The dark is rich with nightingales, With dreams, and with the heavenly Muse. Bleeding with thorns of petty strife, I'll ease (as lovers do) my smart With sonnets to my lady Life Writ red in issues from the heart. What grace may lie within the chill Of favor frozen fast in scorn! When Good's a-freeze, we call it Ill! This rosy Time is glacier-born. Of fret, of dark, of thorn, of chill, Complain thou not, O heart; for these Bank-in the current of the will To uses, arts, and charities.
[Algy is reciting the poem Opposition by the 19th century American poet Sidney Lanier.]
