False February / John Payne

False February

Not seldom, whilst the Winter yet is king,
Whilst yet the meads are mute and boughs are bare,
A stirring in the February air
There comes, as with a faint foreshadowing,
A passing prophecy of far-off Spring
And distant days, when all the world shall wear
The lovely liveries of Summer fair,
That sets our wintry thought upon the wing.
Well though we know the thing's a Winter's trick,
To hold the soul with expectation sick,
And he will soon resume his iron reign,
Yet our fond hearts alone with hope in vain
Swell not; for hark, the swallows in the eaves
Rejoice as though the world were lush with leaves.

~~
John Payne (1842-1916)
from Vigil and Vision; New sonnets, 1903

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

John Payne biography

The February Hush / Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The February Hush

Snow o’er the darkening moorlands,
Flakes fill the quiet air;
Drifts in the forest hollows,
And a soft mask everywhere.

The nearest twig on the pine-tree
Looks blue through the whitening sky,
And the clinging beech-leaves rustle
Though never a wind goes by.

But there’s red on the wildrose berries,
And red in the lovely glow
On the cheeks of the child beside me,
That once were pale, like snow.

~~
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911)
from The Afternoon Landscape, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Thomas Wentworth Higginson biography

Penny's Top 20 / January 2021

  

Penny's Top 20

The most-visited poems on  The Penny Blog in January 2021:

  1.  Esthetique du Mal, Wallace Stevens

  2.  The Holly and the Ivy

  3.  Old and New Year Ditties, Christina Rosetti

  4.  January, Ruby Archer

  5.  Written in Winter, Catherine Manners
  6.  The Fairy in Winter, Walter de la Mare
  7.  Winter, William Carlos Williams

  8.  Winter in the Country, Claude McKay
  9.  The Winter Evening, William Cowper
10.  Over the wood the sun burns, William Wilfred Campbell

11.  The Passing of the Year, Robert Service
12.  January: A pastoral poem, William Perfect
13.  A Snow-flake, Thomas Bailey Aldrich
14.  A Miracle, George J. Dance
15.  Call Back Our Dead, Frederick George Scott
16.  News, AE Reiff
17.  Winter Field, A.E. Coppard

18.  Skating, William Wordsworth
19.  The Bright Extensive Will, AE Reiff

20. Last Week in October, Thomas Hardy

Source: Blogger, "Stats"

Written in Winter / Catherine Manners

Written in Winter

Now o'er the fading landscape all around
His silver mantle hoary Winter spreads:
No more the groves with melody resound,
No cheerful herbage crowns the lonely meads.
Bleak blows the wind o'er yon deserted plain;
While lowering clouds obscure the wintry sky,
And sickening Nature sees with tender pain
The flowery progeny of Summer die.
Thus, in warm youth, vain Beauty's fleeting power
Charms for a moment Love's fantastic eye;
Old Age or Sickness crops the short-liv'd flower,
And wither'd all its brightest honours lie.
      But Virtue, arm'd against Time's rudest blast,
      Shall, like the laurel, ever verdant last.

~~
Catherine Manners (1766-1852)
from Poems, 1793

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Catherine Manners biography

Over the wood the sun burns / William Wilfred Campbell

Over the wood the sun burns

Over the wood the sun burns,
Over the wood and the snow;
As southward and sunward the year turns,
Glad in its azure glow.

Under the winter my heart sings,
Under the chill and the snow;
As forth on my fancy my heart wings
To the days of laughter and glow.

~~
William Wilfred Campbell (1860-1918)
from Poetical Works, 1922

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

William Wilfred Campbell biography

Beko, Sunny Winter Day in Aghveran, Armenia, 2017. CC-BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The Winter Evening / William Cowper (excerpt)

from The Task, Book IV:

     Oh Winter! ruler of the inverted year,
Thy scatter’d hair with sleet like ashes fill’d,
Thy breath congeal’d upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fring’d with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urg’d by storms along its slipp’ry way;
I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem’st,
And dreaded as thou art! Thou hold’st the sun
A pris’ner in the yet undawning East,
Short’ning his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy West; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering at short notice, in one group,
The family dispers’d, and fixing thought,
Not less dispers’d by day-light and its cares.
I crown thee King of intimate delights,
Fire-side enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb’d retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening, know.

~~
William Cowper (1731-1800)
from The Task, and other poems, 1899

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

William Cowper biography

Winter / William Carlos Williams

Winter

Now the snow
lies on the ground
and more snow
is descending upon it —
Patches of red dirt
hold together
the old
snow patches

This is winter —
rosettes of
leather-green leaves
by the old fence
and bare trees
marking the sky —

This is winter
winter, winter
leather-green leaves
spearshaped
in the falling snow

~~
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

from An Early Martyr, and other poems, 1935

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

William Carlos Williams biography