On a cold, rainy night the speaker stands alone outside a house, refusing to go in until a certain upstairs light goes out—and someone inside, it seems, won’t turn it out until he comes in. It is a quiet test of wills, wrapped in cold and darkness. As he walks along the eaves, he startles birds still living in the old thatch. They scatter into the wet night and can’t find their nests again, and he feels a sharp grief for them. But then he reflects that they must simply trust their feathers and inward warmth until daylight, and his own larger grief begins to melt. By the close, he notes that the same cottage’s thatch now goes unmended, and the rain he once stood in has finally leaked through to the upstairs rooms. The mood is solitary and melancholy, but also strangely tender.
The Thatch — Summary
Out alone in the winter rain, Intent on giving and taking pain. But never was I far out of sight Of a certain upper-window light. The light was what it was all about: I would not go in till the light went out; It would not go out till I came in. Well, we should see which one would win, We should see which one would be first to yield. The world was a black invisible field. The rain by rights was snow for cold. The wind was another layer of mould. But the strangest thing: in the thick old thatch, Where summer birds had been given hatch, Had fed in chorus, and lived to fledge, Some still were living in hermitage. And as I passed along the eaves, So low I brushed the straw with my sleeves, I flushed birds out of hole after hole, Into the darkness. It grieved my soul, It started a grief within a grief, To think their case was beyond relief-- They could not go flying about in search Of their nest again, nor find a perch. They must brood where they fell in mulch and mire, Trusting feathers and inward fire Till daylight made it safe for a flyer. My greater grief was by so much reduced As I thought of them without nest or roost. That was how that grief started to melt. They tell me the cottage where we dwelt, Its wind-torn thatch goes now unmended; Its life of hundreds of years has ended By letting the rain I knew outdoors In on to the upper chamber floors.