quotations about winter
What miracle of weird transforming
Is this wild work of frost and light,
This glimpse of glory infinite?
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
"The Pageant"
O Winter! ruler of the inverted year!
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task
When winter twilight falls on my street with the rain, a sense of the horrible sadness of life descends upon me. I think of drunken old women who drown themselves because nobody loves them; I think of Napoleon at St. Helena, and of Byron growing morose and fat in the enervating climate of Italy.
LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH
Trivia
As winters go, this has been a mild one. Which some may think is good. After all, with hardly any snow to shovel and not enough ice to cause an epidemic of slip and falls, this winter has been easy on our backs.... Still, I'm more convinced this mild winter is a bad thing. And here's why: Year round flip-flops. Instead of packing them away until beach season, people have continued to wear the flimsy footwear all winter. FYI: They're just as unsightly in the winter as they are in the summer. They're just as inappropriate in public, too. And gross feet are gross no matter what time of year it is.
GEORGEA KOVANIS
"The woes of a warm winter", Detroit Free Press, February 8, 2016
There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that's a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don't fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything's quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep--then they appear.
TOVE JANSSON
Moominland Midwinter
The Winter is coming -- the Winter is near --
Dread Winter's approaching -- the giant is here;
His footsteps are treading o'er everything green;
His breath is a frost fast encrusting the scene.
The trees are now yellow, the leaves are now sere;
Their pride and their beauty have fled in their fear.
The flowers -- where are they? entombed in the shroud
That hides them from view like a beautiful cloud --
The first fall of snow! How it glitters so clear!
What a pity such beauty begetteth a tear!
What a pity that purity such as the snow's
Is the instrument oft of the bitterest woes!
JOHN MURDOCK
"The Winter Is Coming", Joy Hours; Or, Poems, Songs, and Lyrics
Winter's notion of poetry is tragedy. It knows nothing of comedy. Its laughter was frozen on its lips long ago.
WILLIAM A. QUAYLE
"Headed Into Spring", The Sanctuary, March 17, 1921
Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am out walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
November: Fragments in a Nondescript Style
Winter is a time women often feel like their femininity lies dormant. I wanted to embrace what can happen underneath all those layers, the sensuality of the female form.
MICHELLE SMITH
"MILLY Fall 2016 Collection: Perfect for Selena Gomez & Vanessa Hudgens", Hollywood Life, February 12, 2016
The most revealing part of our missing winter is how few people I've heard complaining. Some hearty souls genuinely miss the freezing cold, but for most Montrealers, this is our winter of content.
JOSH FREED
"For most Montrealers, this is the winter of our content", Montreal Gazette, February 5, 2016
Lilac dries to burnt sienna,
the greens of summer go to ochre.
The goldfinch molts to gray.
In winter light, the cabin
casts its violet shadow. Here
no color can surprise a canvas
except crow's constancy.
ELIZABETH SEYDEL MORGAN
"Painting the Blue Ridge Red", On Long Mountain: Poems
Who's got the winter blues? For me, the slide down begins after the new year and steadily declines, building rapid speed from there, falling into the pit of the dreaded dead of winter. It's that time of year when getting out of your warm bed is not for the weak, and trudging through every day life seems monotonous, exhausting, boring and, well, just hard. For many people, winter is a very difficult season to muster the strength to feel joy and excitement about much of anything. SAD struggle is real, people. It's real.
CHRISTINE CARTER
"5 Ways to Beat Those Winter Blues!", Huffington Post, February 1, 2016
A man says a lot of things in summer he doesn't mean in winter.
PATRICIA BRIGGS
Dragon Blood
Every Fern is tucked and set,
'Neath coverlet,
Downy and soft and warm.
SUSAN COOLIDGE
Time to Go
What did the tree say after a long winter? What a re-leaf ...
NIC LOYD & LINDA WEIFORD
"Weathercatch: Why it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad winter", The Spokesman-Review, April 5, 2017
I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again."
LEWIS CARROLL
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
Do they worst, Winter, but know, but know
That, when the Spring cometh, a blossom shall blow.
JOHN BANISTER TABB
"On the Forthcoming Volume of Sidney Lanier's Poems"
Under the snowdrifts the blossoms are sleeping,
Dreaming their dreams of sunshine and June,
Down in the hush of their quiet they're keeping
Trills from the throstle's wild summer-sung tune.
HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD
Under the Snowdrifts
Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.
WILLA CATHER
My Antonia
If the dark days of winter are a struggle where everything seems that little bit harder, it is not just your imagination. Scientists have discovered that the brain actually works differently throughout the year, with some parts far more active in the summer than in the winter months. In fact, brain activity related to attention and concentration peaks during the summer solstice and slumps to a low on the shortest day of the year.
SARAH KNAPTON
"Why winter is a mental struggle: human brain more active in summer, scientists find", The Telegraph, February 8, 2016