We Like the Winter and its Snows / James Berry Bensel

Ballade

When we were children we would say, —
    "I like the coming of the Spring,
I like the violets of May,
    I like, why, almost everything
    That March and May and April bring."
But now we value less the rose,
    And care not when the birds take wing.
We like the Winter and its snows.

For Springtime cannot always stay,
    And song-birds do not always sing;
The Summer passes swift away,
    And Autumn tree leaves weakly cling.
    So when we sit here listening
To every fitful wind that blows,
    And see the white land glistening,
We like the Winter and its snows.

Who would not in the fountain's spray
    His heavy cares be glad to fling,
If life were all a summer day
    And green boughs bent for us to swing!
    But roses bear sharp thorns that sting,
And yesterday the fountain froze,
    So while the winds are whistling
We like the Winter and its snows.

Envoi

Prince, you and I are glad to ring
    Our changes on the youth that goes,
And laugh while we are shivering,
    "We like the Winter and its snows."

~~
James Berry Bensel (1856-1886)

from Through the Year with the Poets, 1885

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

James Berry Bensel biography

Hassan Ghaedi, Snowy Day of Tehran, 2007. CC BY 4.0, 

courtesy Fars Media Corporation and Wikimedia Commons.