Winter Snow

On this first day of the year in Chicago it has been steadily snowing since early morning.  It snowed on New Year's Eve afternoon and evening as well and we are told to expect more snow tomorrow.  This is a new year but it is not a new season; rather it is the winter of old like those I encountered and perhaps enjoyed more in the Wisconsin of my youth.  There is no better way to start this year than to present some verse commemorating Nature as she presents herself in all her snowy wonder and power.

Lines

 The cold earth slept below

The cold earth slept below;

         Above the cold sky shone;

                And all around,

                With a chilling sound,

From caves of ice and fields of snow

The breath of night like death did flow

                Beneath the sinking moon.

The wintry hedge was black;

         The green grass was not seen;

                The birds did rest

                On the bare thorn’s breast,

Whose roots, beside the pathway track,

Had bound their folds o’er many a crack

                Which the frost had made between.

Thine eyes glow’d in the glare

         Of the moon’s dying light;

                As a fen-fire’s beam

                On a sluggish stream

Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there,

And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair,

                That shook in the wind of night.

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;

         The wind made thy bosom chill;

                The night did shed

                On thy dear head

Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie

Where the bitter breath of the naked sky

                Might visit thee at will.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Stephen Spender, ed.  The Heritage Press, 1974