O Winter! Wilt thou never, never go? / David Gray

XXII

O Winter! Wilt thou never, never go?
    O Summer! but I weary for thy coming;
Longing once more to hear the Luggie flow,
    And frugal bees laboriously humming.
Now, the east wind diseases the infirm,
    And I must crouch in corners from rough weather.
Sometimes a winter sunset is a charm —
    When the fired clouds, compacted, blaze together,
And the large sun dips, red, behind the hills.
    I, from my window, can behold this pleasure;
And the eternal moon, what time she fills
    Her orb with argent, treading a soft measure,
With queenly motion of a bridal mood,
Through the white spaces of infinitude.

~~
David Gray (1838-1861)
from In the Shadows, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide] 

David Gray biography

Alexander Baidukov, Winter sunset over the North Coast, 2021.

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

October's gold is dim / David Gray

XIX

October's gold is dim, – the forests rot,
    The weary rain falls ceaseless, while the day
    Is wrapp'd in damp. In mire of village way
The hedge-row leaves are stamp'd, and, all forgot,
The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn.
    Autumn, among her drooping marigolds,
    Weeps all her garnered sheaves, and empty folds,
And dripping orchards – plundered and forlorn.
    The season is a dead one, and I die!
No more, no more for me the spring shall make
A resurrection in the earth and take
    The death from out her heart – O God, I die!
The cold throat-mist creeps nearer, till I breathe
Corruption. Drop, stark night, upon my death!

~~
David Gray (1838-1861)
from In the Shadows, 1920

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide] 

David Gray biography