This year, as every year, I celebrate Christmas with an homage to the peerless Jill Furse, whose husband, Laurence (later Sir Laurence) Whistler, glass engraver and poet, it was my privilege to know. His account of their brief marriage, The Initials in the Heart, is an intimate, tender and painful love-story.
CAROL
Beyond this room
Daylight is brief.
Frost with no harm
Burns in white flame
The green holly leaf.
Cold on the wind’s arm
Is ermine of snow.
Child with the sad name,
Your time is come
Quiet as moss.
You journey now
For our belief
Between the rich womb
And the poor cross.
Jill Furse (1915-1944)
