Poetry Page

[JoanK]

A Tray of Decorative Carved-Wood Cardinal-Birds Pull up a chair and Join us for... Winter Poetry Famous Poets and Poems about Winter Winter Poems Discussion Leaders: Barb & fairanna

High From The Earth I Heard A Bird ~ Emily Dickinson   High from the earth I heard a bird; He trod upon the trees As he esteemed them trifles, And then he spied a breeze, And situated softly Upon a pile of wind Which in a perturbation Nature had left behind. A joyous-going fellow I gathered from his talk, Which both of benediction And badinage partook, Without apparent burden, I learned, in leafy wood He was the faithful father Of a dependent brood; And this untoward transport His remedy for care, -- A contrast to our respites. How different we are!

I've posted this poem before, but I still like it.

James Wright

I was only a young man
in those days. On that evening
The cold was so -----  -----
Bitter there was nothing.
Nothing. I was in trouble
with a woman, and there was nothing
There but me and dead snow.

I stood on the street corner
In Minneapolis, lashed
This way and that.
Wind rose from some pit,
Hunting me.
Another bus to St. Paul
Would arrive in three hours,
If I was lucky.

Then the young Sioux
Loomed beside me, his scars
Were just my age.

Ain’t got no bus here
A long time, he said.
You got enough money
To get home on?

What did they do
To your hand? I answered.
He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight.
And slashed the wind.

Oh that? He said.
I had a bad time with a woman. Here,
You take this.

Did you ever feel a man hold
Sixty-five cents
In a hook,
And place it
Gently
In your freezing hand?

I took it.
It wasn’t money that I needed.
But I took it.

[JoanK]

Here is a November poem, a month late.

Yea, I have looked, and seen November there;
The changeless seal of change it seemed to be,
Fair death of things that, living once, were fair;
Bright sign of loneliness too great for me,
Strange image of the dread eternity,
In whose void patience how can these have part,
These outstretched feverish hands, this restless heart?

- William Morris,

[mrssherlock]

"Lighting one candle
from another -
Winter night"
-   Buson
What a metaphor!

[mrssherlock]

The Snow Storm     
by Ralph Waldo Emerson 

 
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

   Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.

 

[Babi]

Oh, my, ANNA. All that lovely poem, and all I could think was, "They
waited until after dinner to open their presents??!!" Amazing!

 BARB, I am rubbing my hands as I read the poem about the socks, and I am hoping to receive a pair of wooly gloves for Christmas. They don't even have to be beautiful.

Another from my beloved Robert Frost:

A Winter Eden

A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp,
As near a paradise as it can be
And not melt snow or start a dormant tree.

It lifts existence on a plane of snow
One level higher than the earth below,
One level nearer heaven overhead,
And last year's berries shining scarlet red.

It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast
Where he can stretch and hold his highest feat
On some wild apple tree's young tender bark,
What well may prove the year's high girdle mark.

So near to paradise all pairing ends:
Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends,
Content with bud-inspecting. They presume
To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom.

A feather-hammer gives a double knock.
This Eden day is done at two o'clock.
An hour of winter day might seem too short

[fairanna]

In looking for a winter poem I found one that spoke to me.....as a child I lived several blocks away from a   train track..not close enough to see but near enough to hear. Its late night whistle as it approached a crossing  was special to me...not  loud enough to wake me but enough that in my slumber made me smile...

When we moved here in '72 we lived in the country... a lovely housing development built in the middle of a forest. No streetlights, a rooster would waken me at dawn and at night I could hear the whistle of a train going by , not as loud as my childhood sound ,,the station was several miles away and it seemed to hurry to arrive at its destination ,,so here is the poem that said I am the one you need to share,,

To A Locomotive In Winter

THEE for my recitative!
Thee in the driving storm, even as now--the snow--the winter-day
declining;
Thee in thy panoply, thy measured dual throbbing, and thy beat
convulsive;
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass, and silvery steel;
Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating,
shuttling at thy sides;
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar--now tapering in the
distance;
Thy great protruding head-light, fix'd in front;
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple;
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack;
Thy knitted frame--thy springs and valves--the tremulous twinkle of
thy wheels;
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering:
Type of the modern! emblem of motion and power! pulse of the
continent!
For once, come serve the Muse, and merge in verse, even as here I see
thee,
With storm, and buffeting gusts of wind, and falling snow;
By day, thy warning, ringing bell to sound its notes,
By night, thy silent signal lamps to swing.

Fierce-throated beauty!
Roll through my chant, with all thy lawless music! thy swinging lamps
at night;
Thy piercing, madly-whistled laughter! thy echoes, rumbling like an
earthquake, rousing all!
Law of thyself complete, thine own track firmly holding;
(No sweetness debonair of tearful harp or glib piano thine,)
Thy trills of shrieks by rocks and hills return'd,
Launch'd o'er the prairies wide--across the lakes,
To the free skies, unpent, and glad, and strong.

Walt Whitman

[BarbStAubrey]

So much to do each day I forgot what it is like to live with a family that includes two busy boys - and this cold - oh my - I am not adjusting as quickly as other visits - I am having fun watching the birds skitter and scat flying across the yard - there is one with a nest in the ceiling of the side porch and another at least one and maybe more that have a nest in the covered space with a large window opening above the carport - fun seeing all this darting and swooping.

I found this poem and just love the concept - the thoughts and associations make me think of the story of how young boys are taught to walk on tissue paper and leave no footprint. Actually it looses something when we read and write using our computers - and while I still love to hold a book and write on paper it is almost an ancient and historical product with less value today.

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this
sheet of paper.  Without a cloud there will be no water; without water,
the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper.  So
the cloud is in here.  The existence of this page is dependent upon the
existence of a cloud.  Paper and cloud are so close.

     -   Thich Nhat Hahn

[Babi]

 When I was a child we traveled by train to follow my Dad whenever he
moved on to a different job. I loved the train, waching the scenery pass
by. I felt so grown up to visit the dining room, even if all we could
afford was a bowl of soup. To this day, a train whistle evokes memories
and makes me long to be on my way.

  At one time we thought the computer would negate the need for all the
paper, didn't we. So far that isn't happening. The prudent still keep paper back-up of all the computer work because computers break down and work is lost. I supppose someday they will have that problem resolved, too. I hope before we run out of trees.

[bellemere]

This is long and really packed.  Read it slowly. Oh, the "stranger" refers to the piece of soot that forms on the fire grate and flutters.  It predicted a visitor.

The Frost at Midnight

The Frost performs its secret ministry,   
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry 
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before. 
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, 
Have left me to that solitude, which suits 
Abstruser musings: save that at my side 
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs 
And vexes meditation with its strange 
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,  10
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood, 
With all the numberless goings-on of life, 
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame 
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; 
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, 
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. 
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature 
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, 
Making it a companionable form, 
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit  20
By its own moods interprets, every where 
Echo or mirror seeking of itself, 
And makes a toy of Thought.

 
                                                But O! how oft, 
How oft, at school, with most believing mind, 
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, 
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft 
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt 
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower, 
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang 
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,  30
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me 
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear 
Most like articulate sounds of things to come! 
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, 
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams! 
And so I brooded all the following morn, 
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye 
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book: 
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched 
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,  40
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, 
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, 
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

 
    Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, 
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, 
Fill up the interspersèd vacancies 
And momentary pauses of the thought! 
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart 
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, 
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,  50
And in far other scenes! For I was reared 
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, 
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. 
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze 
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags 
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, 
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores 
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear 
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible 
Of that eternal language, which thy God  60
Utters, who from eternity doth teach 
Himself in all, and all things in himself. 
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould 
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

 
    Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, 
Whether the summer clothe the general earth 
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing 
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch 
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch 
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall  70
Heard only in the trances of the blast, 
Or if the secret ministry of frost 
Shall hang them up in silent icicles, 
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[Babi]

Ah, BELLEMERE, that was a treasure!  I savored every line.  And
picked these to repeat ....

"the idling Spirit 
By its own moods interprets, every where 
Echo or mirror seeking of itself, 
And makes a toy of Thought. "

[bellemere]

Yes, I love The Frost, and am memorizing the last stanza about all seasons being sweet to the baby.  The poem makes it clear that people in those days actually set aside time to THINK without distractions.  some lucky ones can still do that today.  I try, but am less than successful. 

[BarbStAubrey]

Wonderful find Bellemere - the lines that strike a chord with me are...

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God  60
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.  

Yes, that is how I felt and what I believed not only for my children but now for my grandchildren as well.

I have to smile as she saw school as a place with bars - says to me there are others who daydream away the imprisonment, coming 'to' long enough to check on what is being taught, establish that you know what it is about since you have read about it on your own or it is a repeat and then go back to daydreaming.

Saturday night here at my daughter's was a frosty night with freezing rain therefore, no moon but next day everything was clear and ice covered the exposed cliffs while puddles on dirt roads were frozen. In this little town of 600 it is quiet however, what disappoints me I never hear birds or see wildlife - I see birds but do not hear them - at home the quiet is different - there is a constant, not exactly identifiable sound but the air is not as silent with a sort of low grade rumble from the interstate a few miles away and sounds of the city floats up the Mesa from a few miles away and yet, I see deer, possum, raccoons, red fox, sometimes unfortunately a coyote, all sorts of birds that I hear, migrating butterflies along with being on a bird migrating pathway - I like seeing so much animal and bird life and miss that in all this quiet, surrounded by miles of woods and forests there is so little wildlife here - in fact I do not even see squirrels.

[BarbStAubrey]

Birds At Winter Nightfall (Triolet)

        Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!--faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!

Thomas Hardy -

Triolet:
n.
A poem or stanza of eight lines with a rhyme scheme abaaabab, in which the fourth and seventh lines are the same as the first, and the eighth line is the same as the second.

[JoanK]

Mary Oliver - Clapp's Pond  
 

Three miles through the woods
Clapp's Pond sprawls stone gray
among oaks and pines,
the late winter fields
 

where a pheasant blazes up
lifting his yellow legs
under bronze feathers, opening
bronze wings;
 

and one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches
its dampness sharply, flares
out of the brush and gallops away.
 

By evening: rain.
It pours down from the black clouds,
lashes over the roof. The last
acorns spray over the porch; I toss
one, then two more
logs on the fire.
 

How sometimes everything
closes up, a painted fan, landscapes and moments
flowing together until the sense of distance - - -
say, between Clapp's Pond and me - - -
vanishes, edges slide together
like the feathers of a wing, everything
touches everything.
 

Later, lying half-asleep under
the blankets, I watch
while the doe, glittering with rain, steps
under the wet slabs of the pines, stretches
her long neck down to drink
 

from the pond
three miles away.

[Babi]

 How lovely, BARB. The only wildlife I see here, aside from the birds,
are squirrels and an occasional night-prowling raccoon. Small town, but
solid suburbia all the way to the big city.

 Oh, my. I had no idea poets made things so difficult for themselves. A
triolet sounds like it would be very difficult to do successfully.

JOANK, I love that half-asleep vision of the doe at the pond, 3 miles away.

[mrssherlock]

Like a dream . . .

[BarbStAubrey]

The Troll's Nosegay

        A simple nosegay! Was that much to ask?
(Winter still nagged, with scarce a bud yet showing.)
He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.
'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.'
It seems my lady wept and the troll swore
By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen -
Where she had begged one flower he'd shower fourscore,
A bunch fit to amaze a China Queen.

Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose
He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set
WIth elvish unsubstantial Mignonette
And such vague blooms as wandering dreams enclose.
But she?
Awed,
Charmed to tears,
Distracted,
Yet -
Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued - who knows?

Robert Graves

[BarbStAubrey]

A Japanese Woodcarving

      High up above the open, welcoming door
It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.
Once, long ago, it was a waving tree
And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves
Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.
The winter snows had bent its branches down,
The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,
Summer had run like fire through its veins,
While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,
And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.
Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among
Its branches, breaking here and there a limb;
But every now and then broad sunlit days
Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves.
Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us
It does not speak of mossy forest ways,
Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;
But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea!
An artist once, with patient, careful knife,
Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.
Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back
By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue
And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.
Among the flashing waves are two white birds
Which swoop, and soar, and scream for very joy
At the wild sport. Now diving quickly in,
Questing some glistening fish. Now flying up,
Their dripping feathers shining in the sun,
While the wet drops like little glints of light,
Fall pattering backward to the parent sea.
Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows,
Or skimming some white crest about to break,
The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop
And play with ocean in a summer mood.
Hanging above the high, wide open door,
It brings to us in quiet, firelit room,
The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes,
Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll,
And seabirds scream in wanton happiness.

Amy Lowell

[Babi]

Sounds like Robert Graves knows his lady well. She really prefers the
unreasonable dramatizing to the amazing gift.

 Oh, my word. How did Miss Lowell find so much to say
from one simple woodcarving?

 I was surprised to discover that the lyrics of a favorite old Christmas song were written by
Longfellow.  Excuse the length...

Christmas Bells
  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1864)

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
    Had rolled along
    The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
    A voice, a chime,
    A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
    And made forlorn
    The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
    “For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
 

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow I am with you Babi - had no idea the carol was written by Longfellow - one of the more lovely carols of the season...

When you see woodcarving like this from Christopher White then the poem is a perfect foil...although, he wrote a simple poem to accompany his work.

http://www.jchristopherwhite.com/

[mrssherlock]

We've been reading aboute Traude's Chrisatmas memories where the main meal featured a roasted goose, reminding me of this:

Christmas Is Coming

 
Christmas is coming,
The geese are getting fat,
Please put a penny
In the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny,
A ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha'penny,
Then God bless you.

Christmas is coming,
lights are on the tree,
Hang up your stocking for Santa Claus to see.
If you you haven't got a stocking,
a little sock will do;
If you haven't got a little sock,
God bless you!

Christmas is coming,
the season of good cheer,
Let's all sing a carol for the brand-new year!
If you haven't got a carol,
a jolly song will do;
If you haven't got a jolly song,
God... bless... you...!
 

[JoanK]

I always loved that Chrismas Carol. But had no idea the words were by Longfellow.

[BarbStAubrey]

Now Winter Nights Enlarge
          by Thomas Campion (1617)

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours,
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze,
And cups o’erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love,
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

[BarbStAubrey]

Ceremonies for Christmas
          Robert Herrick (1648)

    Come, bring with a noise,
    My merry, merry boys,
The Christmas log to the firing,
    While my good dame, she
    Bids ye all be free,
And drink to your heart’s desiring.

    With the last year’s brand
    Light the new block, and
For good success in his spending,
    On your psalteries play,
    That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a-teending.

    Drink now the strong beer,
    Cut the white loaf here,
The while the meat is a-shredding;
    For the rare mince-pie,
    And the plums stand by,
To fill the paste that’s a kneading.

[Babi]

 Oh, Barb, that is absolutely beautiful!  I had in mind something like
a wooden plaque with sea waves carved into it. This is sculpture of a
high order. Thank you for finding it for us.

And thank you, JACKIE. I knew the lines about the 'ha'penny', but never
knew the rest of it.  Never knew there was more to it, for that matter.
The full poem gets the message across much better.

Hmm.. I think I find the Herrick more lighthearted than the Campion, and
I'm pleased to be introduced to both.   

[mrssherlock]

Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

[mrssherlock]

A similar sentiment:

Zummer An' Winter

by Ingeborg Bachmann

When I led by zummer streams
The pride o' Lea, as naighbours thought her,
While the zun, wi' evenen beams,
Did cast our sheades athirt the water;
Winds a-blowen,
Streams a-flowen,
Skies a-glowen,
Tokens ov my jay zoo fleeten,
Heightened it, that happy meeten.

Then, when maid an' man took pleaces,
Gay in winter's Chris'mas dances,
Showen in their merry feaces
Kindly smiles an' glisnen glances;
Stars a-winken,
Day a-shrinken,
Sheades a-zinken,
Brought anew the happy meeten,
That did meake the night too fleeten.
   

[mrssherlock]

By the author of the delightful Anne of Green Gables stories:

A Winter Dawn

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Above the marge of night a star still shines,
And on the frosty hills the sombre pines
Harbor an eerie wind that crooneth low
Over the glimmering wastes of virgin snow.

Through the pale arch of orient the morn
Comes in a milk-white splendor newly-born,
A sword of crimson cuts in twain the gray
Banners of shadow hosts, and lo, the day!

[mrssherlock]

One more:

The Garden in Winter

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Frosty-white and cold it lies
Underneath the fretful skies;
Snowflakes flutter where the red
Banners of the poppies spread,
And the drifts are wide and deep
Where the lilies fell asleep.

But the sunsets o'er it throw
Flame-like splendor, lucent glow,
And the moonshine makes it gleam
Like a wonderland of dream,
And the sharp winds all the day
Pipe and whistle shrilly gay.

Safe beneath the snowdrifts lie
Rainbow buds of by-and-by;
In the long, sweet days of spring
Music of bluebells shall ring,
And its faintly golden cup
Many a primrose will hold up.

Though the winds are keen and chill
Roses' hearts are beating still,
And the garden tranquilly
Dreams of happy hours to be­
In the summer days of blue
All its dreamings will come true.

[BarbStAubrey]

Now we have another notch that adds to our wry comment that guys have one thing on their mind...

I like these lines in Montgomery's poem

Safe beneath the snowdrifts lie
Rainbow buds of by-and-by;

[Babi]

 JACKIE, it's that reference to love and it's pleasures as toys that make
me suspect Campion was something of a rake and cynic. One reason I
preferred the Herrick.
  I'm translating "jay zoo fleeten" as "joy so fleeting". What do you
think. Mr. Bachmann, IMO, takes a much more likeable approach to the
fleeting nature of the 'happy meeten'.

  I like Lucy Maud's poems; she does have a way with words. "Sombre" is one of those words I like because it seems to evoke it's own meaning so well.

[BarbStAubrey]

I think they were all 'rakes' during the seventeenth century - the best of them seem to see women as either a plaything sometimes as a shared playmate or as an idol whose hair or movement or lips are described. Here is John Donne who became an Anglican Priest talking about the shared experience in the marriage bed.

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/flea.php

Another of his short poems that show him as a rake.
The Indifferent
        by John Donne
I can love both fair and brown;
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays;
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays;
Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town;

And then Shakespeare in his Sonnet 129

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
  All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

Another Shakespeare 135

CXXXV

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'
And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in over-plus;
More than enough am I that vex'd thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store;
So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'
One will of mine, to make thy large will more.
Let no unkind 'No' fair beseechers kill;
Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'

[BarbStAubrey]

Here is Shakespeare on Christmas.

At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

[BarbStAubrey]

'Nativity'
          by John Donne

Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,
Now leaves His well-belov'd imprisonment,
There He hath made Himself to His intent
Weak enough, now into the world to come;
But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room?
Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient,
Stars and wise men will travel to prevent
The effect of Herod's jealous general doom.
Seest thou, my soul, with thy faith's eyes, how He
Which fills all place, yet none holds Him, doth lie?
Was not His pity towards thee wondrous high,
That would have need to be pitied by thee?
Kiss Him, and with Him into Egypt go,
With His kind mother, who partakes thy woe.

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity
This is the month, and this the happy morn
Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,
That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

II
That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,
Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table,
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,
He laid aside, and here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

III
Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,
Now while the heav'n, by the Sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

IV
See how from far upon the eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,
And join thy voice unto the angel quire,
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

[BarbStAubrey]

It is not often I get to see snow and we had a snow fall here the likes that I haven't seen in 20 years - it was supposed to be the last day of school for winter holiday break and they got an additional day.

Snow flakes.
          by Emily Dickinson

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!

[Babi]

Ahh! BARB, if you had not placed Sonnet CXXXV in this context, I would
have been totally at a loss to understand it. Without that hint, it is
totally beWILLdering!

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes, I know - they can write so lovingly and respectfully about Christmas but women - my word -

Sonnet 135 is really filled with a guy's selfish look at women.

• 'Will': (1) wish, inclination, desire; (2) Shakespeare's nickname
• [And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in overplus;] 'Will': passion, carnality
• [More than enough am I that vex thee still,] I bother you to point out that there's plenty of me to go around
• [To thy sweet will making addition thus.]  I can fulfill your desire
• [Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,] here, will can be taken as referring to her vagina
• [Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?] here will can be taken as referring to his penis
• [Shall will in others seem right gracious,] will in others: the desires of others

Raunchy stuff but read in classrooms and among poets as golden words expressing golden thoughts.

Here at my daughter's the snow is slowly melting with a rush of snow falling from the roof that sounded like a thundering hoard burying the house as it went past the windows - not a quick fall but it went on and on so that I for a minute you thought a great tidal wave was covering the land. Whew - the glories of living in the mountains where snow fall uninhibited by city activities and houses sending out warm rays from an accumulation of many roof tops. I guess if you go skiing then you see this sort of thing where as I haven't seen this much snow since in the 80s when Austin had a week of one snow after the other with the city owning no snow removal equipment nor a way to spread gravel or salt on the roads. Back then Austin was still a mid size southern town not a city.

[bellemere]

A few snatches of prosetry from Dylan Thomas, " A Child's Christmas in Wales"

.... a small boy said " It snowed last year, too, and I made a snowman, and my brother knocked it down, and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."
"Oh but that was not the same snow,"I said. "Our snow was not only shaken from whitewash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees;snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely white-ivied the walls and settled on the postmanm, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunderstorm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Go on to the Useless Presents."
"Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor's cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet, and a celuloik duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moss that an ambitiouus cat might make who wished to be a cow, and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea  ......

Alwas on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the little house.  Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Heartw and Death, and then another in which shesaid her heart was like aBird's Nest, and then everybody laughed again and then I went to ed.  Looking through my bedroom window into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long steadily falling night.  I turned the gas down, I got into bed, I said some words to the close and holyh darkness and then I slept.


You won't be sorry if you read this again!

[fairanna]

just read EVERYTHING what a delightful group of poems ...We had snow here today and heavy wind and cold...but the amount was not great and if we warm a bit it will be gone My oldest who lives 3 hrs north had two feet and more expected all the way through Christmas day, Several friends who live north of me called to report a foot or more...I love snow but have grown past the time I want to go out in it ..so am glad I dont need to,..I have a poem in edit and will post if if I find it is what I intended to post WOW you can see how ORGANIZED I AM


Well it is not there let me see if I can find one on line Ah I have one here in my Victorian posy book and will post it .seems easier I think this is  a sample of how the Victorian era thought. Sweet and gentle

JACK FROST IN THE GARDEN

Jack Frost was in the garden;
I saw him there at dawn;
He was dancing round the bushes
And prancing on the lawn.
He had a cloak of silver,
A hat all shimm'ring white,
A wand of glittering star-dust,
And shoes of sunbeam light.

Jack Frost was in the garden,
When I went out to play
He nipped my toes and fingers
And quickly ran away.
I chased him 'round the wood-shed,
But, oh! I'm sad to say
That though I chased him everywhere
He simply would'nt stay.

Jack Frost was in the garden :
But now I'd like to know
Where I can find him hiding ;
I've hunted high and low-
I've lost his cloak of silver,
His hat all shimm'ring white,
His wand of glittering star-dust,
His shoes of sunbeam light.

John P. Smeeton 19th century

[Babi]

 I remember reading that Jack Frost poem long ago. I had forgotten it,
but it was nice to read it again. 

 Dylan Thomas 'story' about the snow was higly imaginative, but I most
appreciated the small boy's summary. 
 

" It snowed last year, too, and I made a snowman, and my brother knocked it down, and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."