The Year Has Changed Its Name / William Morris

The Year Has Changed Its Name

from The Earthly Paradise (1870)

The year has changed its name since that last tale;
Yet nought the prisoned spring doth that avail.
Deep buried under snow the country lies;
Made dim by whirling flakes the rook still flies
Southwest before the wind; noon is as still
As midnight on the southward-looking hill,
Whose slopes have heard so many words and loud
Since on the vine the woolly buds first showed.
The raven hanging o'er the farmstead gate,
While for another death his eye doth wait,
Hears but the muffled sound of crowded byre
And winds' moan round the wall. Up in the spire
The watcher set high o'er the half-hid town
Hearkens the sound of chiming bells fall down
Below him; and so dull and dead they seem
That he might well-nigh be amidst a dream
Wherein folk hear and hear not.

~~
William Morris (1834-1896)
from Through the Year with the Poets: January 

(edited by Oscar Fay Adams), 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Morris biography

Jacob Spinks, Rook, December 2013. CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.