Winter Poems

I have to start with a poem about snow as our delight in the snow has been unbounded!

Snow in the Suburbs

Every branch big with it,

Bent every twig with it;

Every fork like a white web foot;

Every street and pavement mute:

Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward, when

meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.

The palings are glued together like a wall,

And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall

A Spellbound Palace

On this kindly yellow day of mild

low travelling winter sun

The stirless depth of the yews

Are vague with misty blues

Across the spacious pathways stretching

spires of shadow run,

And the wind gnawed walls of ancient

brick are fired vermilion

Provence

I remember a red wall with pigeons perching,

where a breeze lifts from the valley below

through bare trees hung with mistletoe.

For a while I'm at peace and stop my searching

for happiness, that now comes only gently

almost wistfully

and taunts me of the times it was a rich and unsought flow

London Snow

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to their knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder.

'O look at the trees' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'

The winter seems complete now we have had a taste of the beauty that snow and ice brings. I can never decide whether I love most the surprising colours found in the countryside on the mild days, or the sheer joy of the snow. I also love the quiet of winter when the memories of the past feel close.
As a last note, my favourite sight has been the snow lady copy of  Elizabeth Frink's 'Walking Madonna' in the Cathedral close!

The poems chosen are from the works of Thomas Hardy, Robert Bridges and J.A.