I'm January / Annette Wynne

I'm January

I'm January bringing you
A year of days — all brand, brand new;
I step upon the frosty ground
When chimes and sleighbells ring around;
You welcome me and children sing,
And joy comes into everything.
I bring you love and lots of cheer,
And work and friends for all the year.

~~
Annette Wynne (1889-1952)

from For Days and Days: A year-round treasury of child verse, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

[February]

Annette Wynne biography

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978), Girl in Snow with Dog, 1916 (detail). Wikimedia Commons.

January / Jane G. Austin

January

O dark and cold! O dead and drear!
    O bitter end of weary strife!
Art thou indeed the glad New Year,
    Thou stillborn mockery of life?

And art thou then the final fate,
    The end for which our years were born,
So white, so still, so desolate,
    A night that never leads to morn?

It is not peace, this frozen calm,
    And yet it is surcease of pain,
Nepenthe is the surest balm,
    For wounds so healed, bleed not again.

Yes, we will love thee, month of death,
    Yes, we will call thee glad New Year,
Freeze with thy kiss my weary breath,
    See, I am thine, I know no fear.

~~
Jane G. Austin (1831-1894)
from Through the Year with the Poets: January, 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

    Lori Iverson, National Elk Refuge, Wyoming, January 2012. CC BY 2.0 Wikimedia Commons.

[February]

Jane G. Austin biography

January / Ellwood Roberts

January

The short midwinter days are here,
The nights are frosty now and chill —
The solemn midnight of the year —
The snow lies deep on vale and hill.
No longer runs the streamlet nigh,
The ice has bound its waters fast;
An Arctic wind is sweeping by,
The bare trees shiver in the blast.

How changed the Schuylkill's tide! no more
It sparkles in the noonday light;
The ice extends from shore to shore,
Its strength increasing, day and night.
The skaters o'er its surface fly,
In rhythmic motion, all the day,
While dark clouds sweep across the sky,
Foreboding tempests on the way.

And soon we see the storm begin,
All day the snowflakes scurry past,
All night we hear the tempest's din,
The forests bend beneath the blast.
In whirling clouds the snow is hurled,
Along the hillside, down the glen;
Another day the whole bright world
Is shut by drifts beyond our ken.

But soon the sun resumes his sway,
His noontide beams are warm and bright;
The stubborn ice-bridge yields by day,
Though drear and sombre falls the night.
Alternate thaw and storm and cold,
With snowdrifts deep and changeful sky,
The earth in chill embrace enfold —
And so the month goes slowly by.

Midwinter days and nights so drear,
With storm-clouds sweeping o'er the sky—
The solemn midnight of the year
Soon pass and leave no token nigh.
Bare trees that quake beneath the blast,
Will yet be clothed in leafage bright,
And days so chill — the Winter past —
Be bathed in floods of Spring-time light.

~~
Ellwood Roberts (1846-1921)
From Lyrics of Quakerism, and other poems, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ellwood Roberts biography

Logopop, Moonlight in the middle of nowhere 4, 2011. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

A January Night / Thomas Hardy

A January Night
         (1879)

The rain smites more and more,
The east wind snarls and sneezes;
Through the joints of the quivering door
        The water wheezes.

The tip of each ivy-shoot
Writhes on its neighbour's face;
There is some hid dread afoot
        That we cannot trace.

Is it the spirit astray
Of the man at the house below
Whose coffin they took in to-day?
        We do not know.

~~
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
from Moments of Vision, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Thomas Hardy biography

"A January Night" read by Jean Aked. Courtesy jeanakedpoetry.

Snow, Snow / George J. Dance

Snow, Snow

Snow, snow, get out of here;
Come again some other year.
I'd rather that the skies were clear.
Snow, snow, get out of here.

~~
George J. Dance, 2026

["Snow, Snow" by George J. Dance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Unported License.]

George J. Dance biography

Ser Armantio de Nicolao, Snowstorm aftermath in northern Virginia, 2009.

CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

The Year Has Changed Its Name / William Morris

from The Earthly Paradise (1870)

The Year Has Changed Its Name

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.

A Song for the New Year / Barry Cornwall

A Song to the New Year

Hark!
The Old Year is gone!
And the young New Year is coming!
Through minutes, and days, and unknown skies,
My soul on her forward journey flies;
Over the regions of rain and snow;
And beyond where the wild March-trumpets blow:
And I see the meadows, all cowslip-strewn;
And I dream of the dove in the greenwood lone;
And the wild bee humming:—
And all because the New Year is coming!

The Winter is cold, the Winter is grey,
But he hath not a sound on his tongue to-day:
The son of the stormy Autumn, he
Totters about on a palsied knee,
With a frozen heart and a feeble head:
Let us pierce a barrel and drink him dead!
The fresh New Year is almost here;
Let us warm him with mistletoe boughs, my dear!
Let us welcome hither with songs and wine,
Who holdeth such joys in his arms divine!
What is the Past,— to you, or me,
But a thing that was, and was to be?
And now it is gone to a world unknown;
Its deeds are done; its flight is flown!

Hark to The Past! In a bitter tone,
It crieth, "The good Old Year is flown," —
The sire of a thousand thoughtful hours,
Of a thousand songs, of a thousand flowers!
Ah! why, thou ungrateful child of rhyme,
Rail'st thou at the deeds of our father Time?
Hath he not fed thee, day by day,
With fancies that soothe thy soul alway?
Hath he not 'wakened, with pleasant pain,
The Muse that slept in thy teeming brain?
Hath he not, — ah dost thou forget
All the amount of the mighty debt?

Hush, hush! The little I owe to Time
I'll pay him, some day, with a moody rhyme,
Full of phantasmas, dark and drear,
As the shadows thrown down by the old Old Year,
Dim as the echoes that lately fell
From the deep Night's funereal bell,
Sounding hollow o'er hill and vale,
Like the close of a mournful tale!
In the mean time,— speak, trump and drum!
The Year is gone! the Year is come!
The fresh New Year, the bright New Year,
That telleth of hope and joy, my dear!
Let us model our spirit to chance and change,
Let us lesson our spirit to hope, and range
Through pleasures to come,— through years unknown;
But never forget the time that's flown! 

~~
Barry Cornwall (1787-1874)
from English Songs, and other small poems, 1844

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Barry Cornwall biography

George Henry Broughton (1833-1905), Party for New Year's Day in New Amsterdam, 1870.

Public domain, Wikimedia Commons,

January's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured poem for January 2026:

The Winter Lakes, by William Wilfred Campbell

[...]

Under the sun and the moon, under the dusk and the day;

Under the glimmer of stars and the purple of sunsets dying,

Wan and waste and white, stretch the great lakes away.

[...]

(read by Jolene Sentes)

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/01/winter-lakes-william-wilfred-campbell.html

January's featured poem

 

The Penny Blog's featured poem for January 2025:

A Winter Picture, by Evelyn Wetherald

An air as sharp as steel, a sky

Pierced with a million points of fire

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/01/winter-picture-ethelwyn-weatherald.html

January / George J. Dance

    January

    Black branches on white
    with one smear of colour,
    a leaf unfallen.

    ~~
    George J. Dance

    from Logos, and other logoi, 2021

["January" by George J. Dance is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License.]

Image by George J. Dance created with Grok (xAI). CC0 1.0, public domain.

[February]

George J. Dance biography

Manitoba Childe Roland / Carl Sandburg

Lomen Bros., Dogsled team, Nome, Alaska, 1910. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Manitoba Childe Roland

Last night a January wind was ripping at the shingles
    over our house and whistling a wolf song under the
    eaves.

I sat in a leather rocker and read to a six-year-old girl
    the Browning poem, Childe Roland to the Dark
    Tower Came.

And her eyes had the haze of autumn hills and it was
    beautiful to her and she could not understand.

A man is crossing a big prairie, says the poem, and
    nothing happens — and he goes on and on — and it's
    all lonesome and empty and nobody home.

And he goes on and on — and nothing happens — and he
    comes on a horse's skull, dry bones of a dead horse —
    and you know more than ever it's all lonesome and
    empty and nobody home.

And the man raises a horn to his lips and blows — he
    fixes a proud neck and forehead toward the empty
    sky and the empty land--and blows one last wonder-
    cry.

And as the shuttling automatic memory of man clicks
    off its results willy-nilly and inevitable as the snick
    of a mouse-trap or the trajectory of a 42-centimetre
    projectile,

I flash to the form of a man to his hips in snow drifts
    of Manitoba and Minnesota — in the sled derby run
    from Winnipeg to Minneapolis.

He is beaten in the race the first day out of Winnipeg —
    the lead dog is eaten by four team mates — and the
    man goes on and on — running while the other racers
    ride, running while the other racers sleep —

Lost in a blizzard twenty-four hours, repeating a circle
    of travel hour after hour — fighting the dogs who
    dig holes in the snow and whimper for sleep —
    pushing on — running and walking five hundred
    miles to the end of the race — almost a winner — one
    toe frozen, feet blistered and frost-bitten.

And I know why a thousand young men of the North-
    west meet him in the finishing miles and yell cheers
    — I know why judges of the race call him a winner
    and give him a special prize even though he is a
    loser.

I know he kept under his shirt and around his thudding
    heart amid the blizzards of five hundred miles that
    one last wonder-cry of Childe Roland — and I told
    the six year old girl about it.

And while the January wind was ripping at the shingles
    and whistling a wolf song under the eaves, her eyes
    had the haze of autumn hills and it was beautiful
    to her and she could not understand.

~~
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
from Corhhuskers, 1918

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Carl Sandburg biography

"Manitoba Childe Roland" read by The Voice before the Void.

January / James Russell Lowell

from The Vision of Sir Launfal, Part Second:

    I

There was never a leaf on bush or tree,
The bare boughs rattled shudderingly;
The river was dumb and could not speak,
    For the weaver Winter its shroud had spun;
A single crow on the tree-top bleak
    From his shining feathers shed off the cold sun;
Again it was morning, but shrunk and cold,
As if her veins were sapless and old,
And she rose up decrepitly
For a last dim look at earth and sea.

~~
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

from Through the Year with the Poets: January
(edited by Oscar Fay Adams), 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

James Russell Lowell biography 

The Vision of Sir Launfal, and other poems, read by Phil Champ. 

Courtesy LibriVox and A Good Channel. 

(Quoted text begins at 42:17) 

January's featured poem

 

The Penny Blog's featured poem for January 2024:

Velvet Shoes, by Elinor Wylie

Let us walk in the white snow

      In a soundless space;

With footsteps quiet and slow,

     At a tranquil pace,

     Under veils of white lace.

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/01/velvet-shoes-elinor-wylie_19.html

Advent / Patrick Kavanagh

Advent

We have tested and tasted too much, lover –
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning –
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and please
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour –
And Christ comes with a January flower.

~~
Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967)
from A Soul for Sale, 1947

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Patrick Kavanagh biography

"Advent" read by The Passionate Transitory.

January / H. Cordelia Ray

from The Procession of the Seasons

January

To herald in another year,
        With rhythmic note the snowflakes fall
Silently from their crystal courts,
        To answer Winter's call.
Wake, mortal! Time is winged anew!
        Call Love and Hope and Faith to fill
The chambers of thy soul to-day;
        Life hath its blessings still!

~~
H. Cordelia Ray (1852-1916)
from Poems, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[February]

H. Cordelia Ray biography

Olga 1969, Porvoo, Finland,, Old City in January, 2016. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Braggart / Dorothy Parker

Braggart

The days will rally, wreathing
Their crazy tarantelle;
And you must go on breathing,
But I'll be safe in hell.

Like January weather,
The years will bite and smart,
And pull your bones together
To wrap your chattering heart.

The pretty stuff you're made of
Will crack and crease and dry.
The thing you are afraid of
Will look from every eye.

You will go faltering after
The bright, imperious line,
And split your throat on laughter,
And burn your eyes with brine.

You will be frail and musty
With peering, furtive head,
Whilst I am young and lusty
Among the roaring dead.

~~
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
from Enough Rope, 1926

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

Dorothy Parker biography

"Braggart" read by Mandy Sykes.

January's featured poem

  

The Penny Blog's featured poem for January 2023:

The Snow Man, by Wallace Stevens

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2011/01/snow-man-wallace-stevens.html

June Dreams, in January / Sidney Lanier (2)

[... continued from part 1]

Then he that wrote laid down his pen and sighed;
And straightway came old Scorn and Bitterness,
Like Hunnish kings out of the barbarous land,
And camped upon the transient Italy
That he had dreamed to blossom in his soul.
"I'll date this dream," he said; "so: `Given, these,
On this, the coldest night in all the year,
From this, the meanest garret in the world,
In this, the greatest city in the land,
To you, the richest folk this side of death,
By one, the hungriest poet under heaven,
– Writ while his candle sputtered in the gust,
And while his last, last ember died of cold,
And while the mortal ice i' the air made free
Of all his bones and bit and shrunk his heart,
And while soft Luxury made show to strike
Her gloved hands together and to smile
What time her weary feet unconsciously
Trode wheels that lifted Avarice to power,
– And while, moreover, – O thou God, thou God –
His worshipful sweet wife sat still, afar,
Within the village whence she sent him forth
Into the town to make his name and fame,
Waiting, all confident and proud and calm,
Till he should make for her his name and fame,
Waiting – O Christ, how keen this cuts! – large-eyed,
With Baby Charley till her husband make
For her and him a poet's name and fame.'
– Read me," he cried, and rose, and stamped his foot
Impatiently at Heaven, "read me this,"
(Putting th' inquiry full in the face of God)
"Why can we poets dream us beauty, so,
But cannot dream us bread? Why, now, can I
Make, aye, create this fervid throbbing June
Out of the chill, chill matter of my soul,
Yet cannot make a poorest penny-loaf
Out of this same chill matter, no, not one
For Mary though she starved upon my breast?"
And then he fell upon his couch, and sobbed,
And, late, just when his heart leaned o'er
The very edge of breaking, fain to fall,
God sent him sleep.
                                        There came his room-fellow,
Stout Dick, the painter, saw the written dream,
Read, scratched his curly pate, smiled, winked, fell on
The poem in big-hearted comic rage,
Quick folded, thrust in envelope, addressed
To him, the critic-god, that sitteth grim
And giant-grisly on the stone causeway
That leadeth to his magazine and fame.
Him, by due mail, the little Dream of June
Encountered growling, and at unawares
Stole in upon his poem-battered soul
So that he smiled, – then shook his head upon 't
– Then growled, then smiled again, till at the last,
As one that deadly sinned against his will,
He writ upon the margin of the Dream
A wondrous, wondrous word that in a day
Did turn the fleeting song to very bread,
– Whereat Dick Painter leapt, the poet wept,
And Mary slept with happy drops a-gleam
Upon long lashes of her serene eyes
From twentieth reading of her poet's news
Quick-sent, "O sweet my Sweet, to dream is power,
And I can dream thee bread and dream thee wine,
And I will dream thee robes and gems, dear Love,
To clothe thy holy loveliness withal,
And I will dream thee here to live by me,
Thee and my little man thou hold'st at breast,
– Come, Name, come, Fame, and kiss my Sweetheart's feet!"

~~
Sidney Lanier (1842-1881), 1869
from Poems, 1884

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Read complete poem

Sidney Lanier biography

White House / Anna Akhmatova

White House

Sun is frosty. In a parade
Soldiers march with all might.
I am glad at the January noon,
And my fear's very light.

Here they remember each branch
And every silhouette.
Raspberry light is dripping
Through a snow-whitened net.

Almost white was the house,
Made of glass was the wing.
How many times with numb arm
Did I hold the doorbell's ring.

How many times . . . play, soldiers,
I'll make my house, I'll espy
You from a roof that's inclined,
From the ivy that does not die.

But who at last did remove it,
Took away into foreign lands
Or took out from the memory
Forever the road thence . . .

Snow flies, like a cherry blossom,
Distant bagpipes desist . . .
And, it seems, nobody knows
That the white house does not exist.

~~
Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)
translated by Ilya Shambat

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

from Ilya Shambat's Classical Russian Poetry Translation Site


Белый дом

Морозное солнце. С парада
Идут и идут войска.
Я полдню январскому рада,
И тревога моя легка.

Здесь помню каждую ветку
И каждый силуэт.
Сквозь инея белую сетку
Малиновый каплет свет.

Здесь дом был почти что белый,
Стеклянное крыльцо.
Столько раз рукой помертвелой
Я держала звонок-кольцо.

Столько раз… Играйте, солдаты,
А я мой дом отыщу,
Узнаю по крыше покатой,
По вечному плющу.

Но кто его отодвинул,
В чуткие унес города
Или из памяти вынул
Навсегда дорогу туда…

Волынки вдали замирают,
Снег летит, как вишневый цвет…
И, видно, никто не знает,
Что белого дома нет.

~~
Анны Ахматовой (1889-1966)
1914

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

Anna Akhmatova biography
Ilya Shambat biography

Januarie / Edmund Spenser

from The Shepheardes Calender, 1579:

Januarie.  Ægloga prima. 

ARGUMENT. In this fyrst Æglogue Colin Clout a shepheardes boy complaineth him of his vnfortunate loue, being but newly (as semeth) enamoured of a countrie lasse called Rosalinde: with which strong affection being very sore traueled, he compareth his carefull case to the sadde season of the yeare, to the frostie ground, to the frosen trees, and to his owne winterbeaten flocke. And lastlye, fynding himselfe robbed of all former pleasaunce and delights, hee breaketh his Pipe in peeces, and casteth him selfe to the ground.

COLIN Cloute.

A Shepeheards boye (no better doe him call)
when Winters wastful spight was almost spent,
All in a sunneshine day, as did befall,
Led forth his flock, that had been long ypent.
So faynt they woxe, and feeble in the folde,
That now vnnethes their feete could them vphold.

All as the Sheepe, such was the shepeheards looke,
For pale and wanne he was, (alas the while,)
May seeme he lovd, or els some care he tooke:
Well couth he tune his pipe, and frame his stile.
Tho to a hill his faynting flocke he ledde,
And thus him playnd, the while his shepe there fedde.

Ye gods of loue, that pitie louers payne,
(if any gods the paine of louers pitie:)
Looke from aboue, where you in ioyes remaine,
And bowe your eares vnto my doleful dittie.
And Pan thou shepheards God, that once didst loue,
Pitie the paines, that thou thy selfe didst proue.

Thou barrein ground, whome winters wrath hath wasted,
Art made a myrrhour, to behold my plight:
Whilome thy fresh spring flowrd, and after hasted
Thy sommer prowde with Daffadillies dight.
And now is come thy wynters stormy state,
Thy mantle mard, wherein thou maskedst late.

Such rage as winters, reigneth in my heart,
My life bloud friesing wtih vnkindly cold:
Such stormy stoures do breede my balefull smarte,
As if my yeare were wast, and woxen old.
And yet alas, but now my spring begonne,
And yet alas, yt is already donne.

You naked trees, whose shady leaves are lost,
Wherein the byrds were wont to build their bowre:
And now are clothd with mosse and hoary frost,
Instede of bloosmes, wherwith your buds did flowre:
I see your teares, that from your boughes doe raine,
Whose drops in drery ysicles remaine.

All so my lustfull leafe is drye and sere,
My timely buds with wayling all are wasted:
The blossome, which my braunch of youth did beare,
With breathed sighes is blowne away, & blasted,
And from mine eyes the drizling teares descend,
As on your boughes the ysicles depend.

Thou feeble flocke, whose fleece is rough and rent,
Whose knees are weak through fast and evill fare:
Mayst witnesse well by thy ill gouernement,
Thy maysters mind is ouercome with care.
Thou weak, I wanne: thou leabe, I quite forlorne:
With mourning pyne I, you with pyning mourne.

A thousand sithes I curse that carefull hower,
Wherein I longd the neighbour towne to see:
And eke tenne thousand sithes I blesse the stoure,
Wherein I sawe so fayre a sight, as shee.
Yet all for naught: such sight hath bred my bane.
Ah God, that loue should breede both ioy and payne.

It is not Hobbinol, wherefore I plaine,
Albee my loue he seeke with dayly suit:
His clownish gifts and curtsies I disdaine,
His kiddes, his cracknelles, and his early fruit.
Ah foolish Hobbinol, thy gyfts bene vayne:
Colin them gives to Rosalind againe.

I loue thilke lasse, (alas why doe I loue?)
And am forlorne, (alas why am I lorne?)
Shee deignes not my good will, but doth reproue,
And of my rurall musick holdeth scorne.
Shepheards deuise she hateth as the snake,
And laughes the songes, that Colin Clout doth make.

Wherefore my pype, albee rude Pan thou please,
Yet for thou pleasest not, where most I would:
And thou vnlucky Muse, that wontst to ease
My musing mynd, yet canst not, when thou should:
Both pype and Muse, shall sore the while abye.
So broke his oaten pype, and downe dyd lye.

By that, the welked Phoebus gan availe,
His weary waine, and nowe the frosty Night
Her mantle black through heauen gan overhaile.
Which seene, the pensife boy halfe in despight
Arose, and homeward drove his sonned sheepe,
Whose hanging heads did seeme his carefull case to weepe.

~~
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
from Complete Poetical Works, 1908

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"January" read by Melissa. Courtesy Melissa Reads Poems.

[Februarie]

Edmund Spenser biography