January
Cold January comes in Winter's car,
Thick hung with icicles — its heavy wheels
Cumbered with clogging snow, which cracks and peels
With its least motion or concussive jar
'Gainst hard hid ruts, or hewn trees buried far
In the heaped whiteness which awhile conceals
The green and pastoral earth. Old Christmas feels, —
That well-fed and wine-reeling wassailer, —
With all his feasts and fires, feels cold and shivers,
And the red runnel of his indolent blood
Creeps slow and curdled as a northern flood.
And lakes and winter-rills, impetuous rivers
And headlong cataracts, are in silence bound,
Like trammelled tigers lashed to th'unyielding ground
~~
Cornelius Webbe (1813-1857 fl.)
from Lyric Leaves, 1832
{Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
Cornelius Webbe biography
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