Sometimes the mist overhangs my path, And blackening clouds about me cling; But, oh, I have a magic way To turn the gloom to cheerful day – I softly sing.
—James Weldon JohnsonFor the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
—Wallace StevensFairy snow, fairy snow, Blowing, blowing everywhere, Would that I Too, could fly Lightly, lightly through the air.
—Sara TeasdaleHand in hand, we Will go forward toward nothing While our clothes darken And our faces stream With the sweet waters Of heaven.
—Philip LevineChildren’s fingerprints On a frozen window Of a small schoolhouse An empire, I read somewhere, Maintains itself through The cruelty of its prisons.
—Charles SimicSo much of any year is flammable, Lists of vegetables, partial poems Orange swirling flame of days, So little is a stone.
—Naomi Shihab NyeThough some churls at our mirth repine, Round your foreheads garlands twine, Drown sorrow in a cup of wine, And let us all be merry.
—George WitherPlovers that stoop to sanctify the land And scoop small, roundy mangers in the sand, Swaddle a saviour each in a speckled shell.
—Anne StevensonBut it is winter with your love; I scatter crumbs upon the sill, And close the window, — and the birds May take or leave them, as they will.
—Edna St. Vincent MillayI heard a bird sing In the dark of December A magical thing And sweet to remember. We are nearer to Spring Than we were in September.
—Oliver HerfordSee the geese in chevron flight Flapping and racing on before the snow They got the urge for going And they got the wings so they can go.
—Joni MitchellWith night coming early, And dawn coming late, And ice in the bucket And frost by the gate. The fires burn And the kettles sing, And earth sinks to rest Until next spring.
—Elizabeth CoatsworthWe are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders Fields.
—John McCraeAnd the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.
—Maurice SendakThe leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.
—Henry BestonThe sweet calm sunshine of October, now Warms the low spot; upon its grassy mold The purple oak-leaf falls; the birchen bough Drops its bright spoil like arrow-heads of gold.
—William Cullen BryantSeason of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run.
—John KeatsThe day is yet one more yellow leaf And without turning I kiss the light By an old well on the last of the month Gathering wild rose hips In the sun.
—W.S. MerwinAlthough it is a cold evening, Down by one of the fishhouses An old man sits netting, His net, in the gloaming almost invisible, A dark purple-brown.
—Elizabeth BishopLo! sweeten’d with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days.
—Alfred Lord Tennyson