4SEASONS#Winter

· Bert Bevers: Winters erfrecht · Willa Cather: I Sought the Wood in Winter · A Wintry Sonnet by Christina Georgina Rossetti · Les oies sauvages par Guy de Maupassant · Thomas Hardy: Snow in the Suburbs · Claude McKay: To Winter · Les quatre saisons – L’hiver par Charles Cros · Winter: My Secret by Christina Georgina Rossetti · freda kamphuis: gekantelde horizon · Il fait froid par Victor Hugo · D. H. Lawrence: Winter-Lull · Arno Holz: Auf einem Berg aus Zuckerkant

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Bert Bevers: Winters erfrecht

Winters erfrecht

Gesloten luiken, gezegende ogen.
Het mededogen van sneeuw
verrast zelfs kinderen.

Er gaat geen eeuw voorbij
als er niets gebeurt.

Geheugen van geuren
is legendarisch.

Bert Bevers
Winters erfrecht
Eigen terrein,
Uitgeverij WEL, Bergen op Zoom, 2013

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bevers, Bert

Willa Cather: I Sought the Wood in Winter

I Sought the Wood in Winter

I sought the wood in summer
When every twig was green;
The rudest boughs were tender,
And buds were pink between.
Light-fingered aspens trembled
In fitful sun and shade,
And daffodils were golden
In every starry glade.
The brook sang like a robin—
My hand could check him where
The lissome maiden willows
Shook out their yellow hair.

“How frail a thing is Beauty,”
I said, “when every breath
She gives the vagrant summer
But swifter woos her death.
For this the star dust troubles,
For this have ages rolled:
To deck the wood for bridal
And slay her with the cold.”

I sought the wood in winter
When every leaf was dead;
Behind the wind-whipped branches
The winter sun set red.
The coldest star was rising
To greet that bitter air,
The oaks were writhen giants;
Nor bud nor bloom was there.
The birches, white and slender,
In deathless marble stood,
The brook, a white immortal,
Slept silent in the wood.

“How sure a thing is Beauty,”
I cried. “No bolt can slay,
No wave nor shock despoil her,
No ravishers dismay.
Her warriors are the angels
That cherish from afar,
Her warders people Heaven
And watch from every star.
The granite hills are slighter,
The sea more like to fail;
Behind the rose the planet,
The Law behind the veil.”

Willa Cather
(1873 – 1947)
I Sought the Wood in Winter

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive C-D, Archive C-D

A Wintry Sonnet by Christina Georgina Rossetti

A Wintry Sonnet

A robin said: The Spring will never come,
And I shall never care to build again.
A Rosebush said: These frosts are wearisome,
My sap will never stir for sun or rain.
The half Moon said: These nights are fogged and slow,
I neither care to wax nor care to wane.
The Ocean said: I thirst from long ago,
Because earth’s rivers cannot fill the main.
When springtime came, red Robin built a nest,
And trilled a lover’s song in sheer delight.
Gray hoarfrost vanished, and the Rose with might
Clothed her in leaves and buds of crimson core.
The dim Moon brightened. Ocean sunned his crest,
Dimpled his blue, – yet thirsted evermore.

Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830 – 1894)
A Wintry Sonnet

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Rossetti, Christina

Les oies sauvages par Guy de Maupassant

Les oies sauvages

Tout est muet, l’oiseau ne jette plus ses cris.
La morne plaine est blanche au loin sous le ciel gris.
Seuls, les grands corbeaux noirs, qui vont cherchant leurs proies,
Fouillent du bec la neige et tachent sa pâleur.

Voilà qu’à l’horizon s’élève une clameur ;
Elle approche, elle vient, c’est la tribu des oies.
Ainsi qu’un trait lancé, toutes, le cou tendu,
Allant toujours plus vite, en leur vol éperdu,
Passent, fouettant le vent de leur aile sifflante.

Le guide qui conduit ces pèlerins des airs
Delà les océans, les bois et les déserts,
Comme pour exciter leur allure trop lente,
De moment en moment jette son cri perçant.

Comme un double ruban la caravane ondoie,
Bruit étrangement, et par le ciel déploie
Son grand triangle ailé qui va s’élargissant.

Mais leurs frères captifs répandus dans la plaine,
Engourdis par le froid, cheminent gravement.
Un enfant en haillons en sifflant les promène,
Comme de lourds vaisseaux balancés lentement.
Ils entendent le cri de la tribu qui passe,
Ils érigent leur tête ; et regardant s’enfuir
Les libres voyageurs au travers de l’espace,
Les captifs tout à coup se lèvent pour partir.
Ils agitent en vain leurs ailes impuissantes,
Et, dressés sur leurs pieds, sentent confusément,
A cet appel errant se lever grandissantes
La liberté première au fond du coeur dormant,
La fièvre de l’espace et des tièdes rivages.
Dans les champs pleins de neige ils courent effarés,
Et jetant par le ciel des cris désespérés
Ils répondent longtemps à leurs frères sauvages.

Guy de Maupassant
(1850 – 1893)
Les oies sauvages

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive M-N, Archive M-N, Guy de Maupassant, Maupassant, Guy de, Maupassant, Guy de

Thomas Hardy: Snow in the Suburbs

Snow in the Suburbs

Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.

A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eye
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.

The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.

Thomas Hardy
(1840 – 1928)
Snow in the Suburbs

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Hardy, Thomas

Claude McKay: To Winter

To Winter

Stay, season of calm love and soulful snows!
There is a subtle sweetness in the sun,
The ripples on the stream’s breast gaily run,
The wind more boisterously by me blows,
And each succeeding day now longer grows.
The birds a gladder music have begun,
The squirrel, full of mischief and of fun,
From maples’ topmost branch the brown twig throws.
I read these pregnant signs, know what they mean:
I know that thou art making ready to go.
Oh stay! I fled a land where fields are green
Always, and palms wave gently to and fro,
And winds are balmy, blue brooks ever sheen,
To ease my heart of its impassioned woe.

Claude McKay
(1889 – 1948)
To Winter

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: #Modern Poetry Archive, 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive M-N, Archive M-N, Claude McKay

Les quatre saisons – L’hiver par Charles Cros

Les quatre saisons – L’hiver

C’est l’hiver. Le charbon de terre
Flambe en ma chambre solitaire.

La neige tombe sur les toits.
Blanche ! Oh, ses beaux seins blancs et froids!

Même sillage aux cheminées
Qu’en ses tresses disséminées.

Au bal, chacun jette, poli,
Les mots féroces de l’oubli,

L’eau qui chantait s’est prise en glace,
Amour, quel ennui te remplace!

Charles Cros
(1842 – 1888)
Les quatre saisons – L’hiver

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Cros, Charles

Winter: My Secret by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Winter: My Secret

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not to-day; it froze, and blows, and snows,
And you’re too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there’s none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
To-day’s a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling through my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good-will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still.

Spring’s an expansive time: yet I don’t trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither through the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there’s not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.

Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830 – 1894)
Winter: My Secret

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Rossetti, Christina

freda kamphuis: gekantelde horizon

gekantelde horizon

akkers
ver na tijd van oogst
vol zware, zwarte klei
liggen
volledig opengereten
van onder naar boven
tot aan horizon doorkliefd
ruw ontbloot, groots
in winterkaal
aan elementen
overgeleverd landschap
waar nu zelfs vogels
hard
en grimmig ogen, ons beloeren
solitaire bomen
grommen tegen harde wind
boeren, koeien
uit het beeld zijn weggekropen

dapper, onverstoorbaar
rijdt ons treintje
verder langs de open wond
immuun voor taferelen buiten
hangen bijna alle hoofden
richting lichtend, lokkend
landschap beneden,
smartphones

freda kamphuis
gekantelde horizon
wintergedicht

https://fredaxblog.blogspot.com

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive K-L, Archive K-L, Freda Kamphuis, Kamphuis, Freda

Il fait froid par Victor Hugo

Il fait froid

L’hiver blanchit le dur chemin
Tes jours aux méchants sont en proie.
La bise mord ta douce main ;
La haine souffle sur ta joie.

La neige emplit le noir sillon.
La lumière est diminuée…
Ferme ta porte à l’aquilon !
Ferme ta vitre à la nuée !

Et puis laisse ton coeur ouvert !
Le coeur, c’est la sainte fenêtre.
Le soleil de brume est couvert ;
Mais Dieu va rayonner peut-être !

Doute du bonheur, fruit mortel ;
Doute de l’homme plein d’envie ;
Doute du prêtre et de l’autel ;
Mais crois à l’amour, ô ma vie !

Crois à l’amour, toujours entier,
Toujours brillant sous tous les voiles !
A l’amour, tison du foyer !
A l’amour, rayon des étoiles !

Aime, et ne désespère pas.
Dans ton âme, où parfois je passe,
Où mes vers chuchotent tout bas,
Laisse chaque chose à sa place.

La fidélité sans ennui,
La paix des vertus élevées,
Et l’indulgence pour autrui,
Eponge des fautes lavées.

Dans ta pensée où tout est beau,
Que rien ne tombe ou ne recule.
Fais de ton amour ton flambeau.
On s’éclaire de ce qui brûle.

A ces démons d’inimitié
Oppose ta douceur sereine,
Et reverse leur en pitié
Tout ce qu’ils t’ont vomi de haine.

La haine, c’est l’hiver du coeur.
Plains-les ! mais garde ton courage.
Garde ton sourire vainqueur ;
Bel arc-en-ciel, sors de l’orage !

Garde ton amour éternel.
L’hiver, l’astre éteint-il sa flamme ?
Dieu ne retire rien du ciel ;
Ne retire rien de ton âme !

Victor Hugo
(1802 – 1885)
Il fait froid

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Hugo, Victor, Victor Hugo

D. H. Lawrence: Winter-Lull

Winter-Lull

Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed
Into awe.
No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed
Vibration to draw
Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed.

A crow floats past on level wings
Noiselessly.
Uninterrupted silence swings
Invisibly, inaudibly
To and fro in our misgivings.

We do not look at each other, we hide
Our daunted eyes.
White earth, and ruins, ourselves, and nothing beside.
It all belies
Our existence; we wait, and are still denied.

We are folded together, men and the snowy ground
Into nullity.
There is silence, only the silence, never a sound
Nor a verity
To assist us; disastrously silence-bound!

D. H. Lawrence
(1885 –1930)
Winter-Lull

• fleursdumal.nl magazine

More in: 4SEASONS#Winter, Archive K-L, Archive K-L, Lawrence, D.H.