WINTER!

Christina Rossetti described a winter night this way:

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

She was writing about a particular winter night more than 2,000 years ago, but I’ve seen nights like that both in New York and in Alabama in more recent times

Emily Dickinson looked at the light of winter earlier in the day:

There's a certain Slant of light,
      Winter afternoons--
      That oppresses, like the Heft
      Of Cathedral Tunes--



That may have been where Ingmar Bergman got the inspiration and mood  and even title for his Winter Light (1962). If ever there was a bleaker movie, I’ve not seen it. (That is not meant as a criticism. Certainly wintry!)

Victor Hugo had his problems with winter:

In winter there is no heat, no light, no noon, evening touches morning, there is fog, and mist, the window is frosted, and you cannot see clearly. The sky is but the mouth of a cave. The whole day is the cave.... Frightful season! Winter changes into stone the water of heaven and the heart of man.

(Les Misérables: Fantine, translated from French by Chas. E. Wilbour)

Percy Bysshe Shelley endured winter because of its promise:



Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
     Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
     And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
     Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
     Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind,
     If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

I can understand how for Rossetti and Dickinson and the others winter could have serious downsides. But for me, able to stay warm indoors, at least most of the time, winter has much to celebrate, as in this toast from Minna Thomas Antrium in 1902:




Brew me a cup for a winter’s night.
For the wind howls loud, and the furies fight;
Spice it with love and stir it with care,
And I’ll toast your bright eyes, my sweetheart fair.



I toast you, each and every one!  Stay warm! Stay happy!