Poems About Winter

How like a winter hath my absence beenFrom Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,What old December's bareness everywhere!

And yet this time removed was summer's time:The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,Bearing the wanton burden of the primeLike widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:

Yet this abundant issue seem'd to meBut hope of orphans, and unfather'd fruit;For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,And, thou away, the very birds are mute;

Or if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude.Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh ho! the holly! This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remember'd not.Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then heigh ho, the holly! This life is most jolly.

You meaner beauties of the night, Which poorly satisfy our eyesMore by your number than your light, You common people of the skies,What are you, when the Moon shall rise?

Ye violets that first appear, By your pure purple mantles knownLike the proud virgins of the year As if the spring were all your own,--What are you, when the Rose is blown?

You curious chanters of the wood That warble forth dame Nature's lays,Thinking your passions understood By your weak accents; what's your praiseWhen Philomel her voice doth raise?

So, when my Mistress shall be seen In sweetness of her looks and mind,By virtue first, then choice, a Queen, Tell me, if she were not design'dTh' eclipse and glory of her kind?

When icicles hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail;When blood is nipt, and ways be foul,Then nightly sings the staring owl Tuwhoo!Tuwhit! Tuwhoo! A merry note!While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all around the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw,And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw:When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl--Then nightly sings the staring owl Tuwhoo!Tuwhit! Tuwhoo! A merry note!While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

The wintry west extends his blast,And hail and rain does blaw;Or the stormy north sends driving forthThe blinding sleet and snaw:While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,And roars frae bank to brae;And bird and beast in covert rest,And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"The joyless winter day.Let others fear,--to me more dearThan all the pride of May;The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,My griefs it seems to join;The leafless trees my fancy please,Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty schemeThese woes of mine fulfil,Here, firm, I rest,--they must be best,Because they are Thy will.Then all I want (oh, do Thou grantThis one request of mine!)Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,Assist me to resign!

Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze And cups o’erflow with wine; Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love,While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense With lovers’ long discourse; Much speech hath some defence Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well; Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys, And winter his delights;Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights.

The day begins to droop,-- Its course is done:But nothing tells the place Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens, And up the laneYou may hear, but cannot see, The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums In the farm hard by:Its lowering smoke is lost In the lowering sky.

Hence, rude Winter! crabbed old fellow,Never merry, never mellow!Well-a-day! in rain and snowWhat will keep one's heart aglow?Groups of kinsmen, old and young,Oldest they old friends among;Groups of friends, so old and trueThat they seem our kinsmen too;These all merry all togetherCharm away chill Winter weather.

What will kill this dull old fellow?Ale that's bright, and wine that's mellow!Dear old songs for ever new;Some true love, and laughter too;Pleasant wit, and harmless fun,And a dance when day is done.Music, friends so true and tried,Whispered love by warm fireside,Mirth at all times all together,Make sweet May of Winter weather.

When first the fiery mantled SunHis heavenly race began to run,Round the earth and ocean blueHis children four the Seasons flew:-- First, in green apparel dancing,The young Spring smiled with angel-grace; Rosy Summer next advancing,Rush'd into her sire's embrace--Her bright-hair'd sire, who bade her keep For ever nearest to his smiles,On Calpe's olive-shaded steep Or India's citron-cover'd isles.

Old Whiter sad, in snow yclad,Is making a doleful din;But let him howl till he crack his jowl,We will not let him in.

Ay, let him lift from the billowy driftHis hoary, haggard form,And scowling stand, with his wrinkled handOutstretching to the storm.

And let his weird and sleety beardStream loose upon the blast,And, rustling, chime to the tinkling rimeFrom his bald head falling fast.

O western wind, when wilt thou blow That the small rain down can rain?Christ, that my love were in my arms And I in my bed again!

I WHO all the winter through Cherished other loves than you,And kept hands with hoary policy in marriage-bed and pew; Now I know the false and true, For the earnest sun looks through,And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.

Now the hedged meads renew Rustic odour, smiling hue,And the clean air shines and tinkles as the world goes wheelingthrough; And my heart springs up anew, Bright and confident and true,And my old love comes to meet me in the dawning and the dew.

Summer fading, winter comes--Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,Window robins, winter rooks,And the picture story-books.

Water now is turned to stoneNurse and I can walk upon;Still we find the flowing brooksIn the picture story-books.

All the pretty things put by,Wait upon the children's eye,Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,In the picture story-books.

We may see how all things areSeas and cities, near and far,And the flying fairies' looks,In the picture story-books.

How am I to sing your praise,Happy chimney-corner days,Sitting safe in nursery nooks,Reading picture story-books?

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;Blinks but an hour or two; and then,A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,At morning in the dark I rise;And shivering in my nakedness,By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sitTo warm my frozen bones a bit;Or with a reindeer-sled, exploreThe colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrapMe in my comforter and cap;The cold wind burns my face, and blowsIts frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;And tree and house, and hill and lake,Are frosted like a wedding cake.

AROUND the house the flakes fly faster,And all the berries now are goneFrom holly and cotoneasterAround the house. The flakes fly!—fasterShutting indoors that crumb-outcasterWe used to see upon the lawnAround the house. The flakes fly faster,And all the berries now are gone!

SUNNED in the South, and here to-day; —If all organic thingsBe sentient, Flowers, as some men say, What are your ponderings?

How can you stay, nor vanish quite From this bleak spot of thorn,And birch, and fir, and frozen white Expanse of the forlorn?

Frail luckless exiles hither brought! Your dust will not regainOld sunny haunts of Classic thought When you shall waste and wane;

But mix with alien earth, be lit With frigid Boreal flame,And not a sign remain in it To tell men whence you came.

YESTERDAY the fields were only grey with scattered snow,And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and goOn towards the pines at the hills' white verge.

I cannot see her, since the mist's white scarfObscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;But she's waiting, I know, impatient and cold, halfSobs struggling into her frosty sigh.

Why does she come so promptly, when she must knowThat she's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow--Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?

Behold, my fair, where'er we rove, What dreary prospects round us rise;The naked hill, the leafless grove, The hoary ground, the frowning skies!Nor only through the wasted plain, Stern winter! is thy force confess'd;Still wider spreads thy horrid reign, I feel thy pow'r usurp my breast.Enliv'ning hope, and fond desire, Resign the heart to spleen and care;Scarce frighted love maintains her fire, And rapture saddens to despair.In groundless hope, and causeless fear, Unhappy man! behold thy doom;Still changing with the changeful year, The slave of sunshine and of gloom.Tir'd with vain joys, and false alarms, With mental and corporeal strife,Snatch me, my Stella, to thy arms, And screen me from the ills of life.

Rain and wind, and wind and rain.Will the Summer come again?Rain on houses, on the street,Wetting all the people’s feet.Though they run with might and main.Rain and wind, and wind and rain.

Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.Will the Winter never go?What do beggar children doWith no fire to cuddle to,P’raps with nowhere warm to go?Snow and sleet, and sleet and snow.

Hail and ice, and ice and hail,Water frozen in the pail.See the robins, brown and red,They are waiting to be fed.Poor dears; battling in the gale!Hail and ice, and ice and hail.

Winter was not unkind because uncouth;His prison’d time made me a closer guest,And gave thy graciousness a warmer zest,Biting all else with keen and angry tooth:And bravelier the triumphant blood of youthMantling thy cheek its happy home possest,And sterner sport by day put strength to test,And custom’s feast at night gave tongue to truth.

Or say hath flaunting summer a deviceTo match our midnight revelry, that rangWith steel and flame along the snow-girt ice?Or when we hark’t to nightingales that sangOn dewy eves in spring, did they enticeTo gentler love than winter’s icy fang?

I CANNOT live with Beauty out of mind; I seek her and desire her all the day,Being the chiefest treasure man may find, And word most sweet his eager lips can say.She is as strong on me as though I wandered In Severn meadows some blue riotous day.

But since the trees have long since lost their green, And I, an exile, can but dream of thingsGrown magic in the mind, I watch the sheen Of frost and hear the song Orion sings,And hear the star-born passion of Beethoven; Man’s consolations sung on the quivering strings.

Beauty of song remembered, sunset glories, Mix in my mind, till I not care nor knowWhether the stars do move me, golden stories, Or ruddy Cotswold in the sunset glow.I am uprapt, and not my own, immortal, ... In winds of Beauty swinging to and fro.

Beauty immortal, not to be hid, desire Of all men, each in his fashion, give me the strongThirst past satisfaction for thee, and fire Not to be quenched.... O lift me, bear me along,Touch me, make me worthy that men may seek me For Beauty, Mistress Immortal, Healer of Wrong.

While sad I sit, oft musing over Happy days for ever fled;A lonely lodger in a corner, Like some hermit in his shed.

All around seems blithe and merry; My light's dim, and harp's unstrung,While memory turns to yonder valley, On whose flowery banks I've sung.

Dirty, ragged, and down-hearted, Far from country, friends, and home;And as far from kindness parted, Doom'd for work the world to roam.

Why, why, little bird, so cheerfully sing, When all things around look so sad?The prospect at present, as touching the spring, Gives cause to be sorry, not glad!

Had April appear'd in loveliest hue, And made the green meadows look gay,Thou merrily might'st have mounted thy bough, And warbled thy minutes away.

But summer's far off, and still in the copse, The cold winter's snow doth descend,Fierce winds, and sharp frosts, may yet blast thy hopes, And bring thy sweet song to an end.

By craft of the boys, in bush, or in wood, Thy foot may be caught in a snare,And thou whilst seeking a morsel of food, Be a captive, ere thou art aware.

Why merrily sing, when thou hast no barn, In which to lay up thy grain?Why warble thy notes, while unthankful man, So often is heard to complain?

Why cheerfully sing when there are no flowers, Or sun in the valley to shine?'Tis proof that thy prospects are brighter than ours, Thy heart more contented than mine!