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118 Quotes about the Winter & 13 Winter Poems

Every year, the magic of winter mesmerizes us once again. It is a time of contemplation, of picturesque landscapes and of customs and traditions. Our beautiful winter quotes, as well as our winter poems, show the charm that comes with the coldest time of year.

December, January and February are the coldest months of the year. According to the meteorological calendar, winter begins on exactly the first of December. Astronomically, however, the start of winter falls on the 21st of December.

The Most Beautiful Quotes about Winter

The Most Beautiful Quotes about Winter

For many people, winter is an absolute nightmare thanks to the frequent dark, gray and cold days. Not to mention the icy temperatures and short days.

Despite all this, winter also has a beautiful side: we tend to spend more time with family, we take pleasure in watching snowflakes dance and we get to pursue special hobbies like skiing or snowboarding.

In this article, we’ve gathered some wise sayings and quotes about winter spread across nine categories.

All sayings not otherwise marked are from unknown authors. 

Here you will find beautiful quotes for christmas.

Quotes and Blessings for Winter Solstice

Quotes and Blessings for Winter Solstice

The winter solstice falls on the 21st of December and is the shortest day of the year. For many, it is a symbolic occasion, and many societies around the world hold celebrations marking the “day of the sun’s rebirth.”

Winter solstice celebrations honor the symbolism of fire and light, life, death, the rising sun and the moon. If you also celebrate the winter solstice, you will definitely enjoy this collection of blessings and quotes you can use to honor it.

  1. May the magic of snow fill your heart with an abundance of love, joy and happiness this winter solstice.
  2. When everything around is white with snow, bring light into your life and let the happiness flow.
    (Unknown)
  3. May you find peace in the promise of the solstice night,
    That each day forward is blessed with more light.
    That the cycle of nature, unbroken and true,
    Brings faith to your soul and well-being to you.
    (Unknown)
  4. Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.
    (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, 1749-1832)
  5. In this coming season of white and gray, may my winter solstice wishes add warmth to your days.
    (Unknown)
  6. May the dawn of the winter solstice chase the dark away.
  7. During this time of new beginnings, may we reflect, reassess and make a fresh start. Wishing you warmth this winter solstice.
  8. May the light of the Winter Solstice always shine on you.
  9. If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
    (Percy Bysshe Shelley, British writer, 1792-1822)
  10. With the turning of the wheel of time, let us keep our patience and rejoice in the winter solstice.
    (Unknown)
  11. It only gets brighter from here. Happy Winter Solstice!
  12. Winter solstice brings a stillness of soul, a time of reflection and sadness.
    (Unknown)

Beautiful “Good Morning Winter” Quotes

Beautiful “Good Morning Winter” Quotes

Winter mornings are something special: frozen dew drops on the grass, untouched snow and the eerie silence it brings. But the dark and cold can sometimes be hard to overlook, so why not help your loved ones out and brighten their day with these good morning quotes for winter.

  1. Good morning, friend! Hope you enjoy this snowy day!
  2. Today’s to-do list: 1. Drink hot coffee. 2. Wear fluffy socks. 3. Have a great day!
  3. On a cold winter morning, a cigar fortifies the soul.
    (Marie-Henri Beyle, French author, 1783-1842)
  4. Although it may be dark and cold, you can make today count.
  5. Wishing you a wonderful winter’s morning. Stay warm!
  6. Brrrrrr.. Good morning! Grab a hot coffee and keep warm!
  7. Good morning! I hope you take the chance to play in the snow today. Have a great day!
  8. Your light and warmth make my winter mornings feel like spring.
  9. Wishing you a warm day this winter morning. Wrap up tight!
  10. There must be some nerve and heroism in our love, as of a winter morning.
    (Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher, 1817-1862)

Humorous and Funny Quotes about Winter

Humorous and Funny Quotes about Winter

If you’re looking for a bit of humor to warm you up on cold winter days, then you’re going to love the quotes below.

  1. Germans have six months of winter and six months without summer.
    (Napoleon Bonaparte, French statesman, 1769-1821)
  2. These cold mornings are leading to an increase in daydreaming about vacation.
    (Unknown)
  3. Winter is the time when it is too cold to do the job that it was too hot to do last summer.
    (Mark Twain, American writer, 1835-1910)
  4. My favorite winter vegetable is pumpkin pie.
    (Unknown)
  5. Noses are red, fingers are blue. I’m tired of winter, how about you?
    (Unknown)
  6. No matter how cold winter is, summer is cooler.
    (Unknown)
  7. My favorite winter activity is going back inside and putting my pajamas on.
    (Unknown)
  8. One question remains: how do snow plow drivers get to work in the morning?
    (Unknown)
  9. Does anybody still need winter, or can it go now?
    (Unknown)
  10. Two lessons I’ve learned: 1) You have to salt your driveway. 2) I can do the splits.
    (Unknown)
  11. Thermos bottles keep things warm in winter and cold in summer. But how do they know when summer and winter are?
    (Unknown)

Here you will find more funny quotes.

Cute Quotes about Winter for Instagram Captions

Cute Quotes about Winter for Instagram Captions

You’re going to need some cute quotes and winter captions to accompany all your pretty pictures this snowy season. These are perfect for using on scenic winter photos, photos of you playing in the snow, pics of a cozy night in with hot chocolate or really any winter image.

So have a read through these cute and funny caption ideas and see which ones match your pics the best.

  1. ‘Tis the season to be freezin’!
  2. The snuggle is real.
  3. Bright lights, winter nights.
  4. This weather is snow joke.
  5. Not much, just chillin’. You?
  6. Nothing beats a good snuggle on a cold winter’s night.
  7. If kisses were snowflakes, I’d send you a blizzard.
  8. Don’t let the smile fool you – I couldn’t feel my toes when this was taken!
  9. When life gives you snow, make snow angels.
  10. Friends don’t let friends play in the snow alone.
  11. To ski or not to ski, that is the question.
  12. Brrrrring on the snow!
  13. Happiness is the first tracks on fresh snow.
  14. Like a scene from a snow globe.
  15. Hot chocolate is like a hug from the inside.

Short Quotes about the Winter

Short Quotes about the Winter

If you prefer to keep things short and sweet, you’ll find the perfect short quotes about winter below. These work great for using as your status or photo caption, whether that’s on WhatsApp (more WhatsApp quotes), Facebook or Instagram.

  1. For lovers, even winter is spring.
    (Russian Proverb)
  2. In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
    (William Blake, English poet, 1757-1827)
  3. Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.
    (Victor Hugo, French author, 1802-1885)
  4. The fire is winter’s fruit.
    (Arabic Proverb)
  5. Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.
    (Sinclair Lewis, American writer, 1885-1951)
  6. They who sing through the summer must dance through the winter.
    (Italian Proverb)
  7. Wisdom comes with winters.
    (Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, 1854-1900)
  8. The winter does not leave without a backward glance.
    (Finnish Proverb)
  9. Winter laughs as autumn talks about death.
    (Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Moravian-Austrian writer, 1830-1916)
  10. Late roses in the garden make winter wait.
    (German Proverb)
  11. Words that come from the heart stay warm three winters long.
    (Japanese Proverb)
  12. Snow that sticks easily soon melts.
    (Jean Paul, German writer, 1763-1825)
  13. Winter is no colorist, despite the spring!
    (Lou Andreas-Salomé, Russian writer, 1861-1937)
  14. If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
    (Percy Bysshe Shelley, British writer, 1792-1822)
  15. Winter does two things at once: white days and black nights.
    (German Proverb)
  16. If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.
    (Anne Bradstreet, English poet, 1612-1672)
  17. In winter, a fire is better than a muscat blossom.
    (Persian Proverb)
  18. Even the thickest icicle has no chance lasting in the sun.
    (Unknown)
  19. Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too?
    (Gustave Flaubert, French novelist, 1821-1880)
  20. People are more human in summer, more bourgeois in winter.
    (Jean Paul)
  21. Winter is an unworthy guest of the elderly.
    (German Proverb)

Quotes about Winter, Snow and Cold Weather

Quotes about Winter, Snow and Cold Weather

You either love it or you hate it: the icy cold weather of winter. When temperatures drop down to minus figures and the roads are covered with thick snow, we often bury ourselves deeper under the blankets.

  1. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics.
    (Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher, 1803-1882)
  2. The chill of winter brings memories of lost hopes and shattered dreams.
    (Unknown)
  3. Shut the door, not that it lets in the cold, but that it lets out the coziness.
    (Mark Twain, American writer, 1835-1910)
  4. To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.
    (Aristotle, Greek philosopher, 384-322 B.C.)
  5. Only in winter do the pine and cypress show they are evergreen.
    (Confucius, Chinese philosopher, 551 B.C.-479 B.C.)
  6. Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly handshaking.
    (Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844-1900)
  7. Snowflakes are winter’s butterflies.
    (Unknown)
  8. Just because men do not like the cold, heaven will not stop the winter.
    (Chinese Proverb)
  9. It is not cold when it snows, it is only cold when it thaws.
    (Chinese Proverb)
  10. Every winter, the leaves fall from the trees. Five or six remain on the tree and become the wind’s plaything.
    (Charles de Montesquieu, French writer, 1689-1755)
  11. There is no winter without snow, no spring without sunshine, and no happiness without companions.
    (Korean Proverb)
  12. If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it.
    (Lucy Larcom, American teacher and poet, 1824-1893)

Inspirational Sayings about the Winter

Inspirational Sayings about the Winter

There are many old sayings and proverbs about winter. In these cases, they usually deal with weather and crop predictions.

Here you will find more inspirational quotes.

  1. If in winter snow falls aplenty and sticks around, a good year is on its way, so it has always been written.
    (Old saying)
  2. Lingering leaves on October trees, a harsh winter is in store for sure.
    (Old saying)
  3. Spring coveted,
    Summer nourishing,
    Fall reliable,
    Winter consuming.
    (German Proverb)
  4. Reflected in March’s first three days are this year’s coming seasons. Spring like the first, summer like the second and winter like the third.
    (Old weather saying)
  5. Bread is grown in winter nights,
    as seeds flourish freshly under snow;
    only when the sun shines in spring
    do we feel the good that winter has done.
    (Friedrich Wilhelm Weber, German doctor, 1813-1894)
  6. Abundant snow brings rich crops.
    (Old saying)
  7. Heavy mist in early fall, plenty of snow in winter will fall.
    (Old saying)
  8. A busy hamster is not harmed by winter.
    (German Proverb)
  9. Thunder in winter, cold weather ahead.
    (Old saying)
  10. A hot July brings an icy winter.
    (Old saying)

Quotes about the Love of Winter

Quotes about the Love of Winter

The following quotes capture winter’s unique atmosphere well. They portray winter from its more beautiful side and show that winter has more to offer than frozen feet and constant cold.

  1. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
    (Lewis Carroll, British writer, 1832-1898)
  2. How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!
    (Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American Unitarian minister and author, 1823-1911)
  3. Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.
    (Pietro Aretino, Italien author, 1492-1556)
  4. The winter sky brings us a message of peace, joy, and a reminder that a new year is soon to come.
    (Unknown)
  5. Snowflakes are the butterflies of winter.
    (Unknown)
  6. Winter brings us the promise of a new year, a time to take stock and look to the future with joy and optimism.
    (Unknown)
  7. The beauty of a winter snowfall is like a white canvas that conveys the feeling of renewal and hope.
    (Unknown)
  8. Smooth ice is a paradise for those who dance with expertise.
    (Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, 1844-1900)
  9. It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.
    (John Burroughs, American naturalist and essayist, 1837-1921)
  10. Winter: Cold nights, cozy sweaters, hot tea, good books and fluffy socks.
    (Unknown)
  11. Snowflakes are kisses from the sky.
    (Unknown)
  12. Silently, like thoughts that come and go, the snowflakes fall, each one a gem.
    (William Hamilton Gibson, American illustrator, 1850-1896)

More Sayings about Winter

More Sayings about Winter

Before we address the winter poems, here you can find even more winter quotes – some are even from famous personalities.

  1. Winter tames man, woman, and beast.
    (William Shakespeare, English playwright, 1564-1616)
  2. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter’s day?
    (Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher, 1817-1862)
  3. Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.
    (Unknown)
  4. Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail.
    (Montenegrin Proverb)
  5. The silence of a winter’s day brings a loneliness that no one can comprehend.
    (Unknown)
  6. Winter solstice brings a stillness of soul, a time of reflection and sadness.
    (Unknown)
  7. Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.
    (Jeremiah Seed, English clergyman, 1700-1747)
  8. Winter is sin, springtime penance, summer is grace, fall is perfection.
    (Angelus Silesius, German priest, 1624-1677)
  9. Two great doctors, summer and winter – two great poisoners, fall and spring.
    (Jean Paul, German writer, 1763-1825)
  10. Glory can be compared to winter pears – grown in summer but enjoyed in winter.
    (Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher, 1788-1860)
  11. The winter landscape your brush creates is as dreadful as winter itself, I look at it – it chills me.
    (Ewald Christian von Kleist, German poet, 1715-1759)
  12. People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.
    (Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Russian dramatist, 1860-1904)
  13. Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude.
    (WIlliam Shakespeare)
  14. People only have regard for beauty in the good times. In summer, they ask is the stove is beautiful. In winter – if it’s warm.
    (Peter Rosegger, Austrian writer, 1843-1918)
  15. Our summer is just winter painted green, even the sun has to wear a flannel jacket here if it doesn’t want to catch a cold.
    (Heinrich Heine, German poet, 1797-1856)

Contemplative Winter Poems

Contemplative Winter Poems

Many poets such as Shakespeare and Wordsworth have used winter as the subject of their poetry and prose. They describe scenic settings, weather and the feeling that winter evokes.

1)

New Spring

Neath the white tree sitting sadly,
Thou dost hear the far winds wailing,
See’st how the mute clouds o’er thee
Are their forms in mist fast veiling;

See’st how all beneath seems perish’d,
Wood and plain, how shorn and dreary;
Round thee winter, in thee winter,
Frozen is thy heart and weary.

Sudden downward fall upon thee
Flakes all white, and with vexation
Thou dost think the tree is show’ring
Snow-dust from that elevation.

Soon with joyful start thou findest
’Tis no snow-dust cold and freezing;
Fragrant blossoms ’tis of springtime
Cov’ring thee and fondly teasing.

What a shudd’ring-sweet enchantment!
Into May is winter turning,
Snow hath changed itself to blossoms,
And thy heart with love is yearning.

(Heinrich Heine, German poet, 1797-1856)

2)

Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords' decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

(William Shakespeare, English playwright, 1564-1616)

3)

The Darkling Thrush

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

(Thomas Hardy, British writer, 1840-1928)

4)

In the Bleak Midwinter

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.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

(Christina Rossetti, British poet, 1830-1894)

5)

It sifts from leaden sieves

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, —
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem, —
The summer’s empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, —
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

(Emily Dickinson, American poet, 1830-1886)

6)

After the Winter

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves
And against the morning’s white
The shivering birds beneath the eaves
Have sheltered for the night,
We’ll turn our faces southward, love,
Toward the summer isle
Where bamboos spire to shafted grove
And wide-mouthed orchids smile.

And we will seek the quiet hill
Where towers the cotton tree,
And leaps the laughing crystal rill,
And works the droning bee.
And we will build a cottage there
Beside an open glade,
With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near,
And ferns that never fade.

(Claude McKay, Jamaican poet, 1890-1948)

7)

To a Wreath of Snow

To a Wreath of Snow

O transient voyager of heaven!
O silent sign of winter skies!
What adverse wind thy sail has driven
To dungeons where a prisoner lies?

Methinks the hands that shut the sun
So sternly from this morning’s brow
Might still their rebel task have done
And checked a thing so frail as thou.

They would have done it had they known
The talisman that dwelt in thee,
For all the suns that ever shone
Have never been so kind to me!

For many a week, and many a day
My heart was weighed with sinking gloom
When morning rose in mourning grey
And faintly lit my prison room

But angel like, when I awoke,
Thy silvery form so soft and fair
Shining through darkness, sweetly spoke
Of cloudy skies and mountains bare;

The dearest to a mountaineer
Who, all life long has loved the snow
That crowned her native summits drear,
Better, than greenest plains below.

And voiceless, soulless, messenger
Thy presence waked a thrilling tone
That comforts me while thou art here
And will sustain when thou art gone

(Emily Brontë, English novelist, 1818-1848)

8)

Winter: A Dirge

The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
The joyless winter-day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Power Supreme whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest; they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want—O do Thou grant
This one request of mine.—
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

(Robert Burns, Scottish poet, 1759-1796)

9)

The Snow Storm

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.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher, 1803-1882)

10)

On Snow

On Snow

From Heaven I fall, though from earth I begin.
No lady alive can show such a skin.
I’m bright as an angel, and light as a feather,
But heavy and dark, when you squeeze me together.
Though candor and truth in my aspect I bear,
Yet many poor creatures I help to insnare.
Though so much of Heaven appears in my make,
The foulest impressions I easily take.
My parent and I produce one another,
The mother the daughter, the daughter the mother.

(Jonathan Swift, Irish author, 1667-1745)

11)

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 measur’d 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 madly-whistled laughter, echoing, 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, American poet, 1819-1892)

12)

In drear nighted December

In drear nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne’er remember
Their green felicity—
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne’er remember
Apollo’s summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.

Ah! would ’twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy—
But were there ever any
Writh’d not of passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.

(John Keats, British poet, 1795-1821)

13)

On Seeing a Tuft of Snowdrops in a Storm

On Seeing a Tuft of Snowdrops in a Storm

When haughty expectations prostrate lie,
And grandeur crouches like a guilty thing,
Oft shall the lowly weak, till nature bring
Mature release, in fair society
Survive, and Fortune’s utmost anger try;
Like these frail snow-drops that together cling,
And nod their helmets smitten by the wing
Of many a furious whirlblast sweeping by.
Observe the faithful flowers! if small to great
May lead the thoughts, thus struggling used to stand
The Emathian phalanx, nobly obstinate;
And so the bright immortal Theban band,
Whom onset, fiercely urged at Jove’s command,
Might overwhelm, but could not separate!

(William Wordsworth, English poet, 1770-1850)

14)

Winter-Lull

Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed
Into awe.
No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed
Vibration to draw
Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed.

A crow floats past on level wings
Noiselessly.
Uninterrupted silence swings
Invisibly, inaudibly
To and fro in our misgivings.

We do not look at each other, we hide
Our daunted eyes.
White earth, and ruins, ourselves, and nothing beside.
It all belies
Our existence; we wait, and are still denied.

We are folded together, men and the snowy ground
Into nullity.
There is silence, only the silence, never a sound
Nor a verity
To assist us; disastrously silence-bound!

(David Herbert Lawrence, English writer, 1885-1930)

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