MADHU MALTI

Waking In Winter : Sylvia Plath : : Winter Poems : :

“Waking In Winter” By Sylvia Plath is about hopelessness of the loveless Residents of a Hotel. This is a two stanza poem that is separated into two sets of eight lines, or octaves. Written in 1960 and infused with Cold War and environmentalist elements, ‘Waking in Winter’ offers a bleak vision of a post-nuclear winter where the sky doesn’t just look like tin – the whole atmosphere tastes metallic, too.

” I can taste the tin of the sky —- the real tin thing. 1
Winter dawn is the color of metal, 2
The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves. 3
All night I have dreamed of destruction, annihilations —- 4
An assembly-line of cut throats, and you and I” 5
Inching off in the gray Chevrolet, drinking the green 6
Poison of stilled lawns, the little clapboard gravestones, 7
Noiseless, on rubber wheels, on the way to the sea resort.” 8 : 1 St Stanza Of lines(1 To 8)

The 1 St Stanza is about the dull feelings of the fearful and alarming situations , the modern man faces and are apprehensive of “destruction, annihilation” ( “All night.. . dreamed of ” : line 4 ) of the Car drive ( about to happen ) in the grey Chevrolet ( line 6 ), ” on the way to the sea resort” ( line 8 ) with the ‘hopeless’ picture of a ‘gray winter’ day. The Speaker ” can taste the tin of the sky — ” ( line 1 ) : It is a sky element and has a metallic white and silvery colour of the summary sky. This ‘sun- up’ and its opening first break of the day light is a ” winter dawn” ( line 2 ) : : The Speaker gets endowed with the landscape as seen from the car ride : “The trees stiffen in to place like burnt nerves.” ( line 3 ) and has ascribed the human features and by that has conveyed a space devoid of feelings. Her ” “All night dreams” of ” destruction, annihilation(s) ” ( line 4 ) portrays the dreadful obliterated human loss of life and losses . : : : :

The wordings like : “cut throats” ( line 5 ) , “Poison of stilled lawns” : meaning ‘ motionless imitation of grass : perhaps unreal faux decorations the city man lays in the balcony: ( line 7 ) and “clapboard ( boards used in building constructions ) gravestones” ( line 7) : ” the gray Chevrolet” ( line 6 ) and “assembly-line of cut throats.” ( line 5 ) and involving “you and I” ( line 5 ) ascribe dark images and alarming apprehensive and shocking images.: : These are the ‘ Highways ‘ in the ‘ ‘Modern day Society’, where upon “you and I” have to pass through and have to construct as the “grave stones”( line 7 ) : : : :

” How the balconies echoed! How the sun lit up 9
The skulls, the unbuckled bones facing the view! 10
Space! Space! The bed linen was giving out entirely. 11
Cot legs melted in terrible attitudes, and the nurses —- 12
Each nurse patched her soul to a wound and disappeared. 13
The deathly guests had not been satisfied 14
With the rooms, or the smiles, or the beautiful rubber plants, 15
Or the sea, Hushing their peeled sense like Old Mother Morphia.” 16 : : 2 ND Stanza of the lines ( 9 To 16 ) : : : :

The 2 ND Stanza portrays a picture of the Hospital / Hotel / Resort : : loosely jointed cot legs, worn bed linen, along with the patients in : skulls & unbuckled bones , grim or drugged into dulled senses. : : : :

” The You ( the passengers ) and I ( The Speaker ) have arrived at the Hotel / Resort/ Hospital which is filled with ‘death’.: : The “balconies echoed out” their pasts and the “sun lit up / The skulls.” : : The ” You” alongwith ‘ Passengers ‘ of the Chevrolet ride is facing the view before them from the resorts they are kept and where they are nursed with.: : It is not a vacation trip and so are their residential rooms which have lodged with the beds falling apart and the “Cot legs melting” ( line 12 ) ; and ” The bed linens was giving out entirely” ( line 11 ); and ” Each nurse patched her soul to a wound and disappeared ” ( line 13 )

“The deathly guests” ( line 14 ) in this resort are cured of nothing and so ” are not satisfied” ( line 14 ) with anything. In the end of the poem their “peeled sense” is hushed ( subdued ) like “Old Mother Morphia”( line 16 ). : : Thus , the numbness of the world has taken hold of , and these ill – fated residents / Modern City Men of the treating resorts have got stunned, by their disbelief / or in astonishment and they have no choice, but to overcome, from their shocks , and distress , with the high doze of old mother morphine. : : : : This is the story of Modern Society in the Sixties of the last century.: : ” Waking In Winter” : : Be alert, vigilant and opened eyed , and watchful !please ! ! carefully ! look out !? for ‘dangers’ and ‘apprehensions’ in your modern day waking up, in one such “Winter Dawn” : : : :

” Waking In Winter By Sylvia Plath : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India October 25 , 2022 : : : : : : : :

Desert Places : Robert Frost: : Winter Poems : :

Desert Places : : By Robert Frost : : : : : : : :
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it – it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less –
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
WIth no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

“Desert Places” is a poem written by the twentieth century American poet Robert Frost. The poem was originally written in 1933 and appeared in The American Mercury in April 1934 before being collected in his 1936 book A Further Range. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. : : : : Frost composed the poem in the winter of 1933 during bouts of illness and depression. It is one of the poems Frost claims to have written “without fumbling a sentence.” : : : :

The poem is considered one of Frost’s darker and more somber poems, focusing on the terrifying nature of existence. Additional themes are ones of loneliness, fear, and despair. The poem opens with the speaker passing by an empty field during a snowstorm around dusk. As the field is covered with snow, the speaker contemplates the blankness and the whiteness of the snow, a snow “with no expression, nothing to express.” The speaker then turns his contemplation to the night sky “with their empty spaces / Between stars.” The poem shares a similar landscape to Frost’s poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The Irish poet Seamus Heaney notes in his essay “Above the Brim” that the two poems also share a similar rhyme scheme. Heaney also notes that the quick alliteration in the first two lines. : : : :

Frost reflects of the nature of loneliness and emptiness– first in the falling snow, then in the almost infinite emptiness of space. The poem returns to terra firma, though, for the most profound kind of emptiness: that found in one’s own “desert places” : : : :

“Desert Places” can be read both as a meditation on humanity’s isolation in the grand scheme of the cosmos and as a reflection of the speaker’s personal loneliness. This speaker, traveling at night in a snowstorm, feels profoundly alone while watching white “blankness” cover a nearby field. This blankness seems to reflect nature’s general indifference toward humanity, and it may also reflect the speaker’s own internal sense of detachment and desolation. The speaker finds such “desert places”—that is, the empty, isolated spaces of the earth and/or of the mind—as frightening to contemplate as the vast void of outer space. One of Robert Frost’s enduringly popular poems, “Desert Places” was first published in 1934 and later collected in the Pulitzer Prize-winning volume A Further Range (1936).

Snow and darkness were falling rapidly in a field I passed by. The ground was almost entirely blanketed in snow, except for some weeds and stalks still poking out.

The surrounding woods now dominate the landscape: it belongs to them. All the animals are hiding, snowbound, in their dens. I feel too empty and detached to matter; the scene includes me in its loneliness without realizing it.

As lonely as the scene is, it’ll get even lonelier before it gets less lonely. The landscape will grow blanker and whiter in the snowy darkness, becoming expressionless and empty of any sense of human meaning.

I’m not scared when people talk about the emptiness of outer space, or about solar systems uninhabited by humans. I can scare myself quite enough with the emptiness I see close to home (or feel within me). : : : :

Notes for each of the 4 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem : : : :

“Desert Places ” : : By Robert Frost : : : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India October 24 , 2022 : : : :

Journey of the Magi : T S Eliot : : Winter Poems : :

by T.S. Eliot
The Journey Of The Magi
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

First Sight : Philip Larkin : : Winter Poems : :

First Sight : : By Philip Larkin : : : :
Lambs that learn to walk in snow 1
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare. 4
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold. 7

As they wait beside the ewe, 8
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too, 10
Earth’s immeasureable surprise. 11
They could not grasp it if they knew, 12
What so soon will wake and grow 13
Utterly unlike the snow. 14

“First Sight” A Winter Poem by Philip Larkin From ‘Collected Poems’ by Philip Larkin describes young lambs taking their first steps into the big wide world in the snow. Nothing in our life is permanent and there is light behind every darkness. : : It has a sense of musicality, joy and upbeatness. This is partially achieved through the ABABADD rhyme scheme. Written in March 1956, a year where the winter extended into the start of the spring months and is therefore taken from Larkin’s own experiences. : : It is 26 Th poem in the 34 poems Collection : ” Thee Whitsun Weddings By Philip Larkin ( 1964 ) : : “First Sight” implies that there is more to come, a contrastingly optimistic view to most of the other poems like: “Love Songs in Age” , “Faith Healing”. : : There will be more sights, and to note that ‘Second Sight’ is generally used to mean an ability to look into the future or see spirits and therefore see more than there currently is. : : The paradise for Larkin is not heavenly, but here on Earth. It is not something awaited. It exists currently and is merely under cover. What is hoped for is a new means of perception, the melting away of one’s cloak of sorrows, so that one is reaquainted with the sustaining beauty that waited all along. Larkin evokes something “utterly unlike the snow.”The newborn lambs, who have just started to walk in the snowy weather see a vast land , before them. Thus the poem’s title ‘First Sight’ is justified. lambs, being born in Winter, do not know that the earth can be warm and blooming and overwhelming and powerful in a strange way. They will never be fully prepared for the brilliant sunshine the earth is about to give them. Just like babys, toddlers, children, teenagers and even adults will never fully grasp the idea of the next stage of their life until it comes. Life can be both bleak and beautiful. The world , the lambs and we are born into can, at times, appear only cruel and unforgiving, There is “immeasurable surprise” be it love, or friendship, kindness or serenity. That is the message. More true to life, reflective of the struggles which characterise fifties/sixties society. it’s better not to know what’s going on in your life, and then to be surprised. The poem fuses a number of common tropes associated with innocence: lambs, snow, the new-born.

“snow” as the last word in the last line, when this word had also ended the first line of the poem, suggests the cycle of the seasons, as if to remind us that the lambs, and we, can only ever have one ‘first sight’ of either the snow (or the world without snow). Larkin wishes to tell us : there is no other things are new only once. But that’s all the more reason to cherish them when they are, when the world still holds ‘immeasurable surprise. : : : :

Notes for each of the lines Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem. : :

“First Sight” By Philip Larkin : : A winter poem by Philip Larkin : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India October 22 , 2022 : : ::

Snow : Louis MaCneice : : Winter Poems : :

Louis MaCneice : Photo by Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images: Anglo-Irish Poet , Playwright and BBC Radio writer producer : : Louis MacNeice was widely regarded in the 1930s as a junior member of the Auden-Spender-Day Lewis group: MacNeice and Stephen Spender were contemporaries and friends at Oxford, serving as joint editors of Oxford Poetry, 1929. MacNeice became a friend of W.H. Auden’s and collaborated with him on Letters from Iceland (1937). And in Modern Poetry (1938) : : MacNeice was raised among books and began writing poetry at the age of seven . In the four poems he contributed to Oxford Poetry, 1929 and his undergraduate collection, Blind Fireworks (1929)..Poems (1935) shows a real advance in his work.T.S. Eliot accepted the volume for Faber & Faber, MacNeice books published in 1938, I Crossed the Minch and Zoo. MacNeice’s new volume of poetry in the same year, The Earth Compels (1938), is a slim one, reflecting both his personal troubles and the time he had devoted to prose and drama over the past few years. Autumn Journal (1939) is the closest thing to a “major” poem in the MacNeice oeuvre. In Modern Poetry could be more than communication for him and even mystic experiences have their place in it. : : From 1941 until his death, Louis MacNeice was a man of the BBC : a scriptwriter and producer with the Features Department until 1961 and worked with it on a contract basis from then until his death. The most widely read of MacNeice’s work with BBC is his abridged translation of Goethe’s Faust, Parts I and II (1951). : : Unlikely that he will be upgraded to the status of a major poet, his reputation is certainly as high as that of any British poet of the 1930s other than Auden.

**Winter landscape / Snow as seen from the window with a green plant (but inside ) the richness of the room : Awaiting for 🌹🌹 (huge!) roses in flaring red blooms / oh not that Summary Spring ! !**

Snow
BY LOUIS MACNEICE
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was 1
Spawning snow and pink roses against it 2
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: 3
World is suddener than we fancy it. 4

World is crazier and more of it than we think, 5
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various. 8

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world 9
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes—
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands— 11
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses. 12
Louis MacNeice, “Snow” from The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice. Copyright © 1967 by Louis MacNeice. Reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates, Ltd.
Herein , reproduced from poetryfoundation.org : :
Source: The Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice (Oxford University Press, 1967)

“Snow” A Winter Poem By Louis MacNeice is a remarkable poem about the snow falling outside and in more subtle way , it is a poem about being alive. “World is suddener than we fancy it” Line 4 is the most fancier expression. “Snow ” depicts the reality and the conversation between consciousness and subconsciousness working at the poetic levels. The thoughts , emotions and sensual gratification catches the suddener moments in a person’s worldview.( S)he can see the roses in flaring from a fire light ; can taste the sweet & sour tangerine; peel the pips ,( hard seeds of a fruit ) in mouth; hear the bursts & ripples from the fire ( which is felt ill will/ spiteful : line 10 ) : All these happen in the hightened stimulus of the sensations ( “On the tongue, on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s [h(er)/is] hands — ” ( line 11 ) : : : :

“Spawning ( may be because of UPWARDLY Origin Of ) Snow” and EARTHLY “Pink roses against it” ( bay window/ watch : line 2 ) together!? How!? Any Symbolism !? Are’nt these Symbolism, Supportive as well as clashing ( collateral and incompatible : line 3 )”There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses ” ( last line 12 ) : : A “bay window” shows you / makes the viewer’s “room” of existence “suddenly.. . rich !? ( Line 1 opening of the poem ), but also separates the viewer from his/her views. The conclusion in the conversations would be paradoxical but also intuitive , seemingly true or unacceptable !! Hoping for the ‘Separations’ & ‘Differentness’ could produce a newness. Determining from the worldview before a sensitive mindset even through the levels of subconsciousness as well as ever alerted awareness might lead a person suddenly to having a cognizable knowledge of what (s)he experiences and suddenly can ‘MAKE’ him or her ‘ALIVE’ in terms of touchable / perceptible reality : : : : ” The world is more crazier and more of it than we think” ( line 5 ) : : : :

“Snow” By Louis MacNeice , a Winter Poem : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India October 21 , 2022 : : : : : : : :

It sifts from leaden sieves : Emily Dickinson : : Winter Poems : :

It sifts from Leaden Sieves – (291)
BY EMILY DICKINSON : : : :
It sifts from Leaden Sieves –
It powders all the Wood.
It fills with Alabaster Wool 3
The Wrinkles of the Road –

It makes an even Face 5
Of Mountain, and of Plain –
Unbroken Forehead from the East
Unto the East again – 8

It reaches to the Fence –
It wraps it Rail by Rail 10
Till it is lost in Fleeces –
It deals Celestial Vail 12

To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –
A Summer’s empty Room – 14
Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
Recordless , but for them – 16

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
As Ankles of a Queen – 18
Then stills it’s Artisans – like Ghosts –
Denying they have been – 20

From poetryfoundation.org Reprinted Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (Harvard University Press, 1998)

“It sifts from leaden sieves” : By Emily Dickinson is about ” alabaster wool”!? Occuring in line 3. What is “alabaster”!?Alabaster is Maxican Or Oriental hard , white , light , onyx marble/ calcite/ gypsum ( ચિરોડી ) used for carving : And anything that resembling to it is understood as of alabastrine , e. g. Alabastrine Statue. The wooly reference herein this poem draws a soft bulky fleecy appearance; and that is the ‘snow’ in very cold winter. Dickinson has not mentioned a word ‘snow’ in this entire poem. The hiding of known things by snow makes them less visible or unclear to such an extent that they look “like Ghosts” ( line 19 ) “Denying they have been” last line 20 ) : :Dickinson narrates the movement of the snow and the way it settles upon the winter landscape, rendering the road, the railings of the fence, and the lampposts different and strange. : : The metaphors in the snow is “alabaster wool” and like “fleeces”, a “crystal veil” coating the roads and the fences, and remove what we can recall from our former learnings in nature around us by coating a covering of snow. : :

The title ” It sifts from leaden sieves” reminds us a picture of flour sifted through a sieve before our eyes. Normally , we say : It rains from the dark grey clouds in the sky : : Emily says : “It sifts from the leaden sieves ” For a cloudy sky , we say : the sky is leaden and thick.: Here , in this poem , it is leaden with sieves. That is the beauty of the metaphor Emily has employed which narrates the phantasmal supernatural and to an extent spiritual beauty of snow in the winter.

” It Sifts From Leaden Sieves” By Emily Dickinson : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India October 20 , 2022 : : : : : : : :

In the Bleak Midwinter : Christina Rossetti : : Winter Poems : :

**Christina Rossetti, portrait by her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. : :**

As first published in Scribner’s Monthly (January 1872), and was first collected in book form in Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems (Macmillan, 1875).: : Rossetti reportedly earned £10 for the poem – not a bad sum in those days for a single poem, although a payment that is dwarfed by the £1,000 Tennyson received for a poem of just three stanzas that was published in the New York Ledger. : :

**“In The Bleak Midwinter” : landscape and circumstances on birth of Jesus Christ.**

“A Christmas Carol” (1872) : Christina Rossetti : :
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.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty —
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom Angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and Archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only His Mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.

“In the Bleak Midwinter”was actually first published under the title ‘A Christmas Carol’, but it has since become known by its first line, especially after the popularity of several musical settings of the poem. : : : : : : : In 1906, the composer Gustav Holst composed a setting of Rossetti’s words (titled “Cranham”) in The English Hymnal which is sung throughout the world. An anthem setting by Harold Darke composed in 1909 is also widely performed by choirs, and was named the best Christmas carol in a poll of some of the world’s leading choirmasters and choral experts in 2008. : : :: “Bleak Midwinter named best carol”. BBC News. 27 November 2008. Retrieved 26 November 2014 : : “In the Bleak Midwinter” arranged for congregational singing by Gustav Hoist. : : The Darke setting, was written in 1909 while he was a student at the Royal College of Music. This version is favoured by cathedral choirs and is the one usually heard performed on the radio broadcasts by the King’s College Choir. Darke served as conductor of the choir during World War II. Darke omits verse four of Rossetti’s original, and bowdlerizes Rossetti’s “a breastful of milk” to “a heart full of mirth”, although later editions reversed this change. Darke also repeats the last line of the final verse. : : In 2016, the Darke setting was used in a multitrack rearrangement of the song by music producer Jacob Collier. It features contemporary compositional techniques such as microtonality. : :Benjamin Britten includes an elaborate five-part setting of the first verse for high voices (combined with the medieval Corpus Christi Carol) in his work A Boy was Born.

Other settings include those by Robert C L Watson, Bruce Montgomery, Bob Chilcott, Michael John Trotta, Robert Walker, Eric Thiman, who wrote a setting for solo voice and piano, and Leonard Lehrman. : : : :

In verse one, Rossetti describes the physical circumstances of the Incarnation in Bethlehem. In verse two, Rossetti contrasts Christ’s first and second coming. The third verse dwells on Christ’s birth and describes the simple surroundings, in a humble stable and watched by beasts of burden, angels & a Wise man . Rossetti achieves another contrast in the fourth verse, this time between the Angels attendant at Christ’s birth with Mary’s ability to render Jesus physical affection. The final verse shifts the description to a thoughtfulness and feelings in the situations before the settings. : : Just as the Virgin Mary’s simple ‘gift’ of a kiss surpasses all the gold and embalming aroma of worships the Wise Men may have to offer, so the speaker’s offering of “my heart” is a purer gift than any riches. Because, Jesus is as being content with simple comforts. Note the appearance of SNOW (five times), ‘snow on snow’, and of the vowel sounds ( the ‘o’ of ‘snow’ in ‘moan’, ‘stone’, ‘ago’: beautiful examples of assonance ). Even ‘wind’ and ‘water’ share these elemental words like a diffusion of the sounds of ‘winter’ into ‘wind’ and ‘water’. They are the musical stimulus to the poem –becoming a song. Afterall wind, water effects into ice and snow formations.

Hymn Specialist and theologian Ian Bradley has questioned the poem’s theology: “Is it right to say that heaven cannot hold God, nor the earth sustain, and what about heaven and earth fleeing away when he comes to reign?” Asked , Christiansen, Rupert ( 14 December 2007 ) in “The story behind the carol: In the bleak midwinter”: The Daily Telegraph. London. : : : : “In the Bleak Midwinter” lyrics © Universal Classics & Jazz : : Enjoy an illustrative HD Video by visiting You Tube : CLICK HERE In BELOW : :

https://youtu.be/K5_-FVQ5mnk

CLICK HERE In BELOW to enjoy the Carol : Vocals : Renee Fleming and Rufus Wainwright : : A delightful Duet : : Based on original composition By Harold Edwin Darke ( October 29, 1888 – November 28, 1976 ) : : From The Album : Christmas In New York ( 2014 ) : : Arranged By Rob Moose: : Lyrics of the Duet Based on the Original Poem : ” In The Bleak Midwinter Christina Rossetti ( 1830 – 1894 ) : : : : The original poem was recited in Season Four of Peaky Blinders, set shortly after the end of World War One. The carol was a popular Christmas choice during WWI, especially among soldiers. It has also featured in an episode of Dr. Who. : : Numerous singers have covered the carol, including Annie Lennox, Cyndi Lauper and Renee Fleming and Rufus Wainwright. : : : :

https://youtu.be/lre5QYVToTw

“In The Bleak Midwinter” Christina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol / Winter Poem/ Song : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India October 19 , 2022 : : : : : : : :

The Darkling Thrush : Thomas Hardy : : Winter Poems : :

**Thomas Hardy , Between about 1910 and 1915 : : (2 June 1840 Stinsford, Dorset, England– 11 January 1928 (aged 87)**
**Dorchester, Dorset, England ) Stinsford parish church (heart)**
**Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey (ashes) : : Novelist, poet, and short story writer : : Alma mater**
**King’s College London : : Literary movement**
**Naturalism, Victorian literature : : Notable works**
**Tess of the d’Urbervilles**
**Far from the Madding Crowd**
**The Mayor of Casterbridge**
**Collected Poems**
**Jude the Obscure : : Spouse**
**Emma Gifford**

**(m. 1874; died 1912)**
**Florence Dugdale (m. 1914)**

Signed handwritten draft of “The Darkling Thrush” with original title : “By the Century’s Deathbed”, it was first published on 29 December 1900 in The Graphic. The poem was later published in London Times on 1 January, 1901. A deleted ‘1899’ on the poem’s manuscript suggests that it may have been written in that year. It was later included in a collection entitled Poems of the Past and the Present (1901).: :

The Darkling Thrush
BY THOMAS HARDY
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.
— Thomas Hardy : : (2 June 1840 Stinsford, Dorset, England– 11 January 1928 (aged 87)
Dorchester, Dorset, England ) : : : :

The first two stanzas describe a bleak winter landscape at dusk, and the feeling of lifelessness that it produces. In stanza three, the melancholy atmosphere is transformed when “an aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small” suddenly launches into “a full-hearted evensong of joy illimited.” The final stanza muses that since there was no apparent cause for such an ecstatic outburst, the bird’s singing must have been inspired by “some blessed Hope, whereof he knew and I was unaware.” The use of the word “darkling” recalls the same word in Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach (1867), a poem about loss of faith. ( As stated By Stokes, Richard. The Penguin Book of English Song (2016), p 597. ) : : : :

Notes for each of the 4 Stanzas Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem : : : : October 18 , 2022 : : V Jayaraj Pune India : : : : : : : :

Wynter wakeneth al my care : Annonymous : : Winter Poems : :

Wynter Wakeneth al my care : By Annonymous : : Midieval Winter Poem : : : :
‘Wynter wakeneth al my care’ is one of the earliest surviving winter poems in English literature. Below we offer the poem in its original Middle English spelling, followed by a modern English paraphrase designed to help summarise the poem, and then a few words analysing this fine lyric.

Wynter wakeneth al my care,
Nou this leves waxeth bare;
Ofte I sike ant mourne sare
When hit cometh in my thoht
Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht.

Nou hit is, and nou hit nys,
Al so hit ner nere, ywys;
That moni mon seith, soth hit ys:
Al goth bote Godes wille:
Alle we shule deye, thah us like ylle.

Al that gren me graueth grene,
Nou hit faleweth albydene:
Jesu, help that hit be sene
Ant shild us from helle!
For y not whider y shal, ne hou longe her duelle.

A Brief Rewording of explanatory notes : : : :

Winter awakens all my sorrow, now these leaves grow bare; often I sigh and mourn sorely when I come to think of this world’s joy, and how it all goes to nothing. Now it is, now it is not [i.e. now you see it, now you don’t]; as though it had never been, truly. Many men say this, and it is so: everything goes except God’s will, and we shall all die, though we don’t like it [like it ill]. All that green [i.e. grass] which grows green, now it fades altogether: Jesus, help this to be seen [i.e. understood], and shield us from hell! For I don’t know where I shall go, nor how long I shall dwell here. : : : :

dated the winter-manuscriptpoem to around 1310 ( By Edward Bliss Reed, in a 1928 article for Modern Language Notes and records that the poem is thought to have been composed in Leominster, Herefordshire. In short, it’s a very early poem written in recognisable middle English ) : : : : Theodore Silverstein’s English Lyrics Before 1500 places it ‘before 1340’, so several decades (at least) before Geoffrey Chaucer began writing. : : : :

Notes for each of the explanatory lines of the poem : pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem. : : :: October 17 , 2022 : : : : : : : :

How like a winter hath my absence been : Sonnet 97 : William Shakespeare : : Sonnets : Winter Poems : :

Circa 1600, English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616). (Photo by Stock Montage/Getty Images) : : While William Shakespeare’s reputation is based primarily on his plays, he became famous first as a poet. The study of his nondramatic poetry can illuminate Shakespeare’s activities as a poet emphatically of his own age , the last ten or twelve years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Shakespeare’s exact birth date remains unknown. He was baptized in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564, his mother’s third child, but the first to survive infancy. This has led scholars to conjecture that he was born on April 23rd, given the era’s convention of baptizing newborns on their third day. Shakespeare’s father, John Shakespeare, moved to Stratford in about 1552. : : The sonnets were apparently composed during a period of ten or a dozen years starting in about 1592-1593. : : Known colloquially as “The Bard” or “The Bard of Avon,” Shakespeare was also an actor and the creator of the Globe Theatre, a historical theatre, and company that is visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists every year.

His works span tragedy, comedy, and historical works, both in poetry and prose. And although the man is the most-recognized playwright in the world, very little of his life is actually known. No known autobiographical letters or diaries have survived to modern day, and with no surviving descendants, Shakespeare is a figure both of magnificent genius and mystery. Interest in Shakespeare’s nondramatic writings has increased markedly in recent years.They contribute in powerful ways to a deeper understanding of Shakespeare’s oeuvre and the Elizabethan era in which he lived and wrote. : : “SHAKE-SPEARES / SONNETS / Never before Imprinted.” is the publication : :

**The 154 sonnets are conventionally divided between the “young man” sonnets (1-126) and the “dark lady” sonnets (127-152), with the final pair often seen as an envoy or coda to the collection.**

Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

This sonnet describes the Winter scene wherein the speaker is absent from his lover. The poem refers an autumn too ,but finally the winter returns, hence this is a winter poem.

Summary : : When I was away as removed from you, although it was literally summer, it felt like winter, because I was apart from you. I have felt cold, the days have appeared dark, and it feels like December everywhere I look, with everything bare and empty.

Yet when I was removed from you it was summer – or late summer, early autumn – with the fruitfulness of nature one associates with that time of year. It’s a bit like a lord’s widow, who fell pregnant with her husband’s child but who was made a widow before the child was born.

Yet all this abundance seemed to me to be like an fatherless child; because you are free to enjoy summer with all its pleasures, while I – because away from you – have to dwell in winter, when no birds sing. Or, if they do sing, it’s such a sad song that it makes all the leaves on the trees pale, because they dread the approach of winter. : : : :

Notes for each of the 14 lines of the Sonnet : Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem. V Jayaraj Pune India October 16 , 2022 : : : : : : : :