Hares and Easter

One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.

Researching seasonal poetry (as you do) brought me again, unexpectedly, to "Memory" by W.B. Yeats. The poem is as beautiful as I remembered. But I found it quoted anew, coupled with this image by young Dutch photographer Rebecca Rijsdijk.

Together the one amplifies the other into something so exquisite that it took my breath away and the involuntary response to such beauty, love and loss was to weep.

More images.

Terri Windling's article The Symbolism of Rabbits and Hares underpins the power of Yeats' analogy and Rijsdijk's image. Windling reminds us that the hare is "a goddess symbol, a trickster symbol, a symbol of the Holy Trinity, a symbol of death, redemption and rebirth".

Very fitting in the run up to Easter.