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

January: A pastoral poem / William Perfect

January: A pastoral poem

Tho' Janus has widen'd the day,
And December that nurtur'd the storm
Each terror suspends to convey
In sadden'd variety's form;
Thy hand, Devastation, is spread
O'er Nature's disconsolate face;
The path-way dejected I tread,
As the havoc of winter I trace.

How pointed with ice is the air,
The woodlands besplendent with frost
A landscape of crystal prepare
Whose beauties in rigours are lost.
Imprison'd behold the clear rill
Irriguous that stole thro' the mead;
No more in soft murmurs distil
Its waters to cherish the reed.

Those scenes where the songsters of love
Pour'd carols which nature excites,
Resounding in bliss thro' the grove,
Resounding with purest delights;
Those scenes to dejection a prey,
To winter's wide ruin consign'd,
No longer sensations convey,
Improving and pleasing the mind.

For mute are the notes of the thrush,
The lark has his matins forgot,
The red-breast explores the bare bush,
Or for nurture intrudes on the cot.
No song the fresh milk-maid bestows,
No longer she visits the vale,
Where erst at the side of her cows
Each eve she replenish'd the pail.

The morning distressful of mien,
From slumbers of sluggish delay,
Now opens a wide-wasting scene,
At once both terrific and gay;
Aerial treasures of snow
The mountains and valleys invest,
With what a bright burden below
Is the bosom of nature oppress'd!

Go, shepherds, attend the thick field,
To your ewes in the valley repair,
O save the young lambs from the cold,
They bleat for protection and care.
Ye neat herds go look to the kine,
The crib with sweet fodder supply,
The task of compassion is thine,
For herbage the meadows deny.

Whilst the voice of the north is severe,
And heard thro' the trees with dismay,
What sorrow is that which I hear,
More sad than the sighs of the day!
'Tis Delia. — Why weeps my soft fair,
What opens the spring of her grief,
Or loosens her soft-flowing hair,
Can Corydon tender relief?

She weeps o'er poor Emmeline's tomb,
Who fell as a wreath of the snow;
She fell in the pride of her bloom,
As bright as the heavenly bow.
Her voice was the music of spring,
Her heart was ineffable love,
Her face all that beauty could bring,
In mildness she rival'd the dove.

Thou bright as the moon on the main,
My Delia no longer deplore,
Nor harrow thy bosom with pain,
For Emmeline must be no more.
Permit I partake of thy woe,
The privilege can you refuse?
Together, my fair one, we'll go,
And death of his triumph accuse.

To her manes rever'd let us raise
Of flowers an elegant mound,
The spring shall supply us with bays,
And Flora shall purple the ground.
In vain are you delug'd in tears,
O grant me your grief to beguile,
Exempt from despondency's fears,
We'll meet the new year with a smile.

~~
William Perfect (1737-1809)
from Sentimental Magazine, January 1774

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

[February: A pastoral poem]

William Perfect biography

A Snow-flake / Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The Snow-Flake

Once he sang of summer,
Nothing but the summer;
Now he sings of winter,
Of winter bleak and drear:
Just because there's fallen
A snow-flake on his forehead,
He must go and fancy
'T is winter all the year!

~~
Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907)
from Poems, 1885

[Poem is in the public domain world-wide]

Thomas Bailey Aldrich biography

Winter in the Country / Claude McKay

Winter in the Country

Sweet life! how lovely to be here
     And feel the soft sea-laden breeze
Strike my flushed face, the spruce's fair
     Free limbs to see, the lesser trees'

Bare hands to touch, the sparrow's cheep
     To heed, and watch his nimble flight
Above the short brown grass asleep.
     Love glorious in his friendly might,

Music that every heart could bless,
     And thoughts of life serene, divine,
Beyond my power to express,
     Crowd round this lifted heart of mine!

But oh! to leave this paradise
     For the city's dirty basement room,
Where, beauty hidden from the eyes,
     A table, bed, bureau and broom

In corner set, two crippled chairs
     All covered up with dust and grim
With hideousness and scars of years,
     And gaslight burning weird and dim,

Will welcome me . . . And yet, and yet
     This very wind , the winter birds,
The glory of the soft sunset,
     Come there to me in words.

~~
Claude McKay (1889-1948)
from Harlem Shadows, 1922

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

Claude McKay biography

"Winter in the Country" read by Harp Griffin.