#WingedWordsWindsday: 2023/01/10 -- January: Month of Snow Daze

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 3, No. 11: January 10, 2024

 

 

January: Month of Snow Daze

 

“The North Wind Doth Blow”

Traditional English Nursery Rhyme (16^th Century)

 

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the robin do then, Poor thing?

He'll sit in a barn,

And keep himself warm,

And hide his head under his wing, Poor thing!

 

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the swallow do then, Poor thing?

Oh, do you not know

That he's off long ago,

To a country where he will find spring, Poor thing!

 

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the dormouse do then, Poor thing?

Rolled up like a ball

In his nest snug and small

He'll sleep till warm weather comes in, Poor thing!

 

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the honey-bee do then, Poor thing?

In his hive he will stay

Till the cold is away

And then he'll come out in the spring, Poor thing!

 

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the children do then, Poor things?

When lessons are done

They will skip, jump and run,

Until they have made themselves warm, Poor things!

 

“The Snow-Storm”

By Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

 

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving over 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.

 

“Spellbound”

By Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

 

The night is darkening round me,

The wild winds coldly blow;

But a tyrant spell has bound me

And I cannot, cannot go.

 

The giant trees are bending

Their bare boughs weighed with snow.

And the storm is fast descending,

And yet I cannot go.

 

Clouds beyond clouds above me,

Wastes beyond wastes below;

But nothing drear can move me;

I will not, cannot go.

 

In the late 1970s, during wintertime on the planet Mars, NASA’s Viking 2 space probe photographed widespread frost on the rocks and soil around its landing site. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain)

 

LXIII: “To a Wreath of Snow”

By Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

 

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 lifelong has loved the snow

That crowned his 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.

 

“Winter-Time”

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

 

Late lies the wintry Sun a-bed,

A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;

Blinks but an hour or two; and then,

A blood-red orange, sets again.

 

Before the stars have left the skies,

At morning in the dark I rise;

And shivering in my nakedness,

By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

 

Close by the jolly fire I sit

To warm my frozen bones a bit;

Or with a reindeer-sled, explore

The colder countries round the door.

 

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap

Me in my comforter and cap;

The cold wind burns my face, and blows

Its frosty pepper up my nose.

 

Black are my steps on silver sod;

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;

And tree and house, and hill and lake,

Are frosted like a wedding cake.

 

This photo of Mars’ north pole, taken in 2012 by Mars Global Surveyor, shows the presence of carbon dioxide (dry ice) snow during the Martian winter. (Photo Credit: NASA – Public Domain)

 

“The Winter Scene: Part II”

By Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

 

Out from the silent portal of the hours,

When frosts are come and all the hosts put on.

Their burnished gear to march across the night

And o'er a darkened Earth in splendor shine,

Slowly above the world Orion wheels

His glittering square, while on the shadowy hill

And throbbing like a sea-light through the dusk,

 

Great Sirius rises in his flashing blue.

Lord of the winter night, august and pure,

Returning year on year untouched by time,

To hearten faith with thine unfaltering fire,

There are no hurts that beauty cannot ease,

No ills that love cannot at last repair,

In the victorious progress of the soul.

 

“Winter Dusk”

By Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

 

I watch the great clear twilight

Veiling the ice-bowed trees;

Their branches tinkle faintly

With crystal melodies.

 

The larches bend their silver

Over the hush of snow;

One star is lighted in the west,

Two in the zenith glow.

 

For a moment I have forgotten

Wars and women who mourn —

I think of the mother who bore me

And thank her that I was born.

 

Sonnet #13: “Hesperia”

(Excerpted from Fungi from Yuggoth)

By H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937)

 

The winter sunset, flaming beyond spires

And chimneys half-detached from this dull sphere,

Opens great gates to some forgotten year

Of elder splendors and divine desires.

Expectant wonders burn in those rich fires,

Adventure-fraught, and not untinged with fear;

A row of sphinxes where the way leads clear

Toward walls and turrets quivering to far lyres.

It is the land where beauty’s meaning flowers;

Where every unplaced memory has a source;

Where the great river Time begins its course

Down the vast void in starlit streams of hours.

Dreams bring us close — but ancient lore repeats

That human tread has never soiled these streets.