Ode to Winter
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft ;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
J. KEATS
ODE TO WINTER
Germany, December, 1800
When first the fiery-mantled Sun
His heavenly race began to run,
Round the earth and ocean blue
His children four the Seasons flew :-
First, in green apparel dancing,
The young Spring smiled with angel-grace;
Rosy Summer next advancing,
Rush'd into her sire's embrace-
Her bright-hair'd sire, who bade her keep
For ever nearest to his smiles,
On Calpe's olive-shaded steep
Or India's citron-cover'd isles. More remote, and buxom-brown,
The Queen of vintage bow'd before his throne;
Ode to Winter
A rich pomegranate gemm'd her crown,
A ripe sheaf bound her zone.
But howling Winter fled afar
To hills that prop the polar star;
And loves on deer-borne car to ride
With barren darkness at his side,
Round the shore where loud Lofoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale,
Round the hall where Runic Odin
Howls his war-song to the gale-
Save when adown the ravaged globe
He travels on his native storm,
Deflowering Nature's grassy robe
And trampling on her faded form;
Till light's returning Lord assume
The shaft that drives him to his northern field,
power to pierce his raven plume
And crystal-cover'd shield.
O, sire of storms! whose savage ear
The Lapland drum delights to hear,
When Frenzy with her bloodshot eye
Implores thy dreadful deity--
Archangel! Power of desolation !
Fast descending as thou art,
Say, hath mortal invocation
Spells to touch thy stony heart :
Then, sullen Winter! hear my prayer,
And gently rule the ruin'd
Nor chill the wanderer's bosom bare
Nor freeze the wretch's falling tear :
To shuddering Want's unmantled bed
Thy horror-breathing agues cease to lend,
And gently on the orphan head
Of Innocence descend.
Yarrow Unvisited
But chiefly spare, O king of clouds !
The sailor on his airy shrouds,
When wrecks and beacons strew the steep,
And spectres walk along the deep.
Milder yet thy snowy breezes
Pour on yonder tented shores,
Where the Rhine's broad billow freezes,
Or the dark-brown Danube roars.
O, winds of Winter! list ye there
To many a deep and dying groan?
Or start, ye demons of the midnight air,
At shrieks and thunders louder than
Alas! e'en your unhallow'd breath
May spare the victim fallen low;
But Man will ask no truce to death,
No bounds to human woe.
From Stirling Castle we had seen
The mazy Forth unravell❜d,
Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay,
And with the Tweed had travell'd;
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my 'winsome Marrow,'
'Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside,
And see the Braes of Yarrow.'
'Let Yarrow folk, frae Selkirk town,
Who have been buying, selling,
Go back to Yarrow, 'tis their own,
Each maiden to her dwelling!
Yarrow Unvisited
On Yarrow's banks let herons feed,
Hares couch, and rabbits burrow;
But we will downward with the Tweed,
Nor turn aside to Yarrow.
'There's Galla Water, Leader Haughs,
Both lying right before us;
And Dryburgh, where with chiming Tweed
The lintwhites sing in chorus;
There's pleasant Tiviotdale, a land
Made blythe with plough and harrow:
Why throw away a needful day
To go in search of Yarrow?
"What's Yarrow but a river bare
That glides the dark hills under ?
There are a thousand such elsewhere
As worthy of your wonder.'
-Strange words they seen'd of slight and scorn;
My true-love sigh'd for sorrow,
And look'd me in the face, to think
I thus could speak of Yarrow !
'O green,' said I, 'are Yarrow's holms,
And sweet is Yarrow flowing!
Fair hangs the apple frae the rock,
But we will leave it growing.
O'er hilly path and open strath
We'll wander Scotland thorough;
But, though so near, we will not turn
Into the dale of Yarrow.
'Let beeves and home-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burn-mill meadow;
The swan on still Saint Mary's Lake
Float double, swan and shadow !
Yarrow Visited
We will not see them; will not go
To-day, nor yet to-morrow;
Enough if in our hearts we know
There's such a place as Yarrow.
Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown;
It must, or we shall rue it :
We have a vision of our own,
Ah! why should we undo it?
The treasured dreams of times long past,
We'll keep them, winsome Marrow!
For when we're there, although 'tis fair,
"Twill be another Yarrow!
'If care with freezing years should come
And wandering seem but folly,-
Should we be loth to stir from home,
And yet be melancholy;
Should life be dull, and spirits low,
"Twill soothe us in our sorrow
That earth has something yet to show,
The bonny Holms of Yarrow!'
YARROW VISITED
September, 1814
And is this-Yarrow?-This the stream
Of which my fancy cherish'd
So faithfully, a waking dream,
An image that hath perish'd?
O that some minstrel's harp were near
To utter notes of gladness
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness
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