The Wintry Day / Perdita

The Wintry Day

Is it in mansions rich and gay,
On downy beds, or couches warm,
That Nature owns the wintry day,
And shrinks to hear the howling storm?
     Ah! No!

'Tis on the bleak and barren heath,
Where Misery feels the ice of death,
As to the dark and freezing grave
Her children, not a friend to save,
     Unheeded go!

Is it in chambers silken drest,
At tables which profusions heap,
Is it on pillows soft to rest,
In dreams of long and balmy sleep?
     Ah! No!

'Tis in the rushy hut obscure,
Where Poverty's low sons endure,
And, scarcely daring to repine,
On a straw pallet, mute, recline,
     O'erwhelm'd with wo!

Is it to flaunt in warm attire,
To laugh, to feast, and dance, and sing;
To crowd around the blazing fire,
And make the roof with revels ring?
     Ah! No!

'Tis on the prison's flinty floor,
'Tis where the deafening whirlwinds roar;
'Tis when the sea-boy, on the mast,
Hears the wave bounding to the blast,
     And looks below!

'Tis in a cheerless naked room,
Where Misery's victims wait their doom,
Where a fond mother famish'd dies,
While forth a frantic father flies,
     Man's desperate foe!

Is it where gamesters thronging round,
Their shining heaps of wealth display?
Where fashion's giddy tribes are found,
Sporting their senseless hours away?
     Ah! No!

'Tis in the silent spot obscure,
Where, forced all sorrows to endure,
Pale Genius learns — oh! lesson sad!
To court the vain, and on the bad
     False praise bestow!

Where the neglected hero sighs,
Where Hope, exhausted, silent dies,
Where Virtue starves, by Pride oppress'd,
'Till every stream that warms the breast
     Forbears to flow!

~~
Perdita (Mary Robinson) (1758-1800)
from Poetical Works, 1824

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

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