Lament in December

Lament In December

December’s come and all is dead;
Weep, woods, for summer far has sped
And leaves rot in the valley bed.

Grey-blue and gaunt the oak-boughs spread
Mourn through a mist their leafage shed.
December, season of the dead!

Brown-golden, scarlet, orange-red
Autumn’s bright hues are faded, fled.
December, season of the dead!

Robert Graves

For Robert Graves – traumatized by what he witnessed on the Somme and by the brutality and enduring grief of a dark time – December is the season of the dead. And there were so many of them. Who could have thought death could have undone so many? 

The Cool Web – The Cool Web : A Robert Graves Oratorio – is also the title of a choral  and orchestral work written by Jools Scott and Sue Curtis composed to commemorate the First World War and based on the work of Robert Graves. 

Here’s an excerpt from the Bath Abbey première performed by Edward Grint (baritone), Philharmonia Voices, Endymion Ensemble and the Melody Makers of Bath Abbey, conducted by Robin O’Neill

It’s based on the poem above. And it’s beautiful.

Dark, drear, dismal, dead December. But not everything – nor everyone – is dead. Here is Eliot Hodgkin with an exquisite rendering of December gatherings:

The artist Evelyn Dunbar was born on this day in 1906. Here is the whole calendar.

And to cheer us up further here is Edward Bawden  getting into the Christmas spirit for Fortnum and Mason 1955..