(Old English Folk song "Sing Ivy")
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
.
.
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Winter Solitude
by Matsuo Basho
Winter solitude--
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.
[Translated by Robert Hass ]
.
Winter
by Walter de la Mare
Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
..
Alone sings now.
The rayless sun,
Day's journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
.
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.
Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
.
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.
.
.
Late Winter Cold Snap, North Country
Forecasted-
to freeze the country
According to the weather report,
then clear skies expected to face the coldest weather
"The cold snap has arrived"
and temperatures are now expected to drop below freezing-
(As we huddle...)
.
Frosty conditions will develop overnight, in some parts
but it will be dry, so little chance of snow....
Only the icy fog of frost, and rime of Winter ice.
The coldest night of the Winter so far was experienced
on Wednesday into Thursday, according to the office
And icy windows form their spiderwebs of frost.…
.
The wintry weather would continue, they said
into the weekend, and a fairly cloudy day today.
It’s a "bit grey, fairly dry, with windy spells and we get will get breaks in the clouds,
There will be some isolated light showers in the north-west"
.
Cold, with temperatures for most
staying in the low single figures-
The temperatures are likely to increase slightly
on Sunday, after a cloudy and cold Saturday,
with sunny spells for some
and light drizzle in the Eest….
.
And, as the weekend draws to a close,
temperatures rose as colder air moved away.
But soon
a low-pressure weather system will bring stronger winds,
And then the fall
of the endless-seeming snows
[-A]
Imbolc
the celebration of the goddess Brighid.
Friday February 1
2019 in Republic of Ireland
IMAGES BY GOOGLE
“I cannot tell what year this is!"…...
“They waited a long time, but there was only the shake of their horses' nervous skin like black velvet tambourines
jingling the silver stirrup buckles,
softly, softly.
"Ah." The second man sighed. "What a land of nightmares. Everything happens here.
Someone blows out the sun; it's night.
And then, and then, oh. God, listen! This dragon, they say
his eyes are fire. His breath a white gas; you can see him bum across the dark lands. He runs with
sulphur and thunder and kindles the grass. Sheep panic and die insane. Women deliver forth monsters.
The dragon's fury is such that tower walls shake back to dust. His victims, at sunrise,
are strewn hither and thither on the hills. How many knights, I ask, have gone for this monster
and failed, even as we shall fail?"
"Enough of that!"
"More than enough! Out here in this desolation I cannot tell what year this is!"
"Nine hundred years since the Nativity."
"No, no," whispered the second man, eyes shut. "On this moor is no Time, is only Forever.
I feel if I ran back on the road the town would be gone, the people yet unborn, things changed,
the castles unquarried from the rocks,
the timbers still uncut from the forests;
don't ask how I know, the moor knows, and tells me. And here we sit alone in the land of the fire dragon.”
From -“Dragon,”
Ray Bradbury