Winter Poems

Winter is the time of waiting. When all plans and intensions are fulfilled and there’s nothing to do except enjoying warmth of fireplace (or its analogue) and wait for next spring.

However even sleeping nature is magnificent. It provides significant impact on poetry about this season. Some poets are admiring peace and glory of snowfields and others are expressing their tensed expectation. However winter poetry is same beautiful as other.

 

Poetry About Winter

 

 

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Winter solitude-

in a world of one color

the sound of the wind.

(Matsuo Bashō)

 

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I've lived to bury my desires

and see my dreams corrode with rust

now all that's left are fruitless fires

that burn my empty heart to dust.

 

Struck by the clouds of cruel fate

My crown of Summer bloom is sere

Alone and sad, I watch and wait

And wonder if the end is near.

 

As conquered by the last cold air

When Winter whistles in the wind

Alone upon a branch that's bare

A trembling leaf is left behind.

 (Alexander Pushkin)

 

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The days are short

The sun a spark

Hung thin between

The dark and dark

(John Updike)

 

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Winter is the king of showmen,

Turning tree stumps into snowmen

And houses into birthday cakes

And spreading sugar over lakes.

Smooth and clean and frosty white,

The world looks good enough to bite.

That’s the season to be young,

Catching snowflakes on your tongue.

Snow is snowy when it’s snowing,

I’m sorry it’s slushy when it’s going.

(Ogden Nash)

 

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There's a certain Slant of light,

      Winter afternoons –

      That oppresses, like the Heft

      Of Cathedral Tunes –

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –

      We can find no scar,

      But internal difference,

      Where the Meanings, are....

When it comes, the Landscape listens –

      Shadows – hold their breath –

      When it goes, 'tis like the Distance

      On the look of Death.

(Emily Dickinson)

 

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I've been a dweller on the plains,

have sighed when summer days were gone;

No more I'll sigh; for winter here

Hath gladsome gardens of his own.

(Dorothy Wordsworth)

 

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Through winter-time we call on spring,

And through the spring on summer call,

And when the abounding hedges ring

Declare that winter's best of all:

And after that there's nothing good

Because the spring time has not come--

Not know that what disturbs our blood

Is but its longing for the tomb.

(W. B. Yeats)

 

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In the bleak midwinter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter,

Long ago.

(Christina Rossetti)