These Winter nights against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
Of ferns and blossoms and read more

These Winter nights against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines,
Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines,
Which she will make when summer comes again--
Quaint arabesques in argent, flat and cold,
Like curious Chinese etchings.

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou build thy dark,
Deep-founded read more

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou build thy dark,
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

O Winter! ruler of the inverted year,
. . . .
I crown thee king of intimate read more

O Winter! ruler of the inverted year,
. . . .
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening, know.

Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, read more

Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.

When now, unsparing as the scourge of war,
Blasts follow blasts and groves dismantled roar;
Around their read more

When now, unsparing as the scourge of war,
Blasts follow blasts and groves dismantled roar;
Around their home the storm-pinched cattle lows,
No nourishment in frozen pasture grows;
Yet frozen pastures every morn resound
With fair abundance thund'ring to the ground.

Come, see the north-wind's masonry,
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
read more

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, naught cares he
For number or proportion.

The frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.

The frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind.

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for read more

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.