By John Clare (1793-1864)
The winter comes; I walk alone,
I want no bird to sing;
Tho those who keep their hearts their own
The winter is the spring.
No flowers to please—no bees to hum—
The coming spring’s already come.
I never want the Christmas rose
To come before its time;
The season, each as God bestows,
Are simple and sublime.
I love to see the snowstorm hing’
‘Tis but the winter garb of spring,
I never want the grass to bloom:
The snowstorms’ best in white.
I love to see the tempest come
And love its piercing light.
The dazzled eyes that love to cling
O’er snow-white meadows sees this spring.
I love the snow, the crumpling snow
That hands on everything,
It covers everything below
Like white dove’s drooding wind,
A landscape to the aching sight,
A vast expanse of dazzling light.
It is the foliage of the woods
That winters bring—the dress,
White Easter of the year in bud,
That makes the winter Spring.
The frost and snow his posies bring,
Nature’s white spurts of the spring.
Thank you. I recommend Smilla’s Sense of Snow as a good thriller.
You might also enjoy reading “Come Winter” [published 1973] by Evan Hunter .
A glamorous ski resort becomes the setting for unspeakable evil in this “chilling, fascinating novel” by the New York Times–bestselling author of “Last Summer’ (Los Angeles Times).