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Winter in Northumberland

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Outside the garden

The wet skies harden;

The gates are barred on

The summer side:

"Shut out the flower-time,

Sunbeam and shower-time;

Make way for our time,"

Wild winds have cried.

Green once and cheery,

The woods, worn weary,

Sigh as the dreary

Weak sun goes home:

A great wind grapples

The wave, and dapples

The dead green floor of the sea with foam.

Through fell and moorland,

And salt-sea foreland,

Our noisy norland

Resounds and rings;

Waste waves thereunder

Are blown in sunder,

And winds make thunder

With cloudwide wings;

Sea-drift makes dimmer

The beacon's glimmer;

Nor sail nor swimmer

Can try the tides;

And snowdrifts thicken

Where, when leaves quicken,

Under the heather the sundew hides.

Green land and red land,

Moorside and headland,

Are white as dead land,

Are all as one;

Nor honied heather,

Nor bells to gather,

Fair with fair weather

And faithful sun:

Fierce frost has eaten

All flowers that sweeten

The fells rain-beaten;

And winds their foes

Have made the snow's bed

Down in the rose-bed;

Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose.

Bury her deeper

Than any sleeper;

Sweet dreams will keep her

All day, all night;

Though sleep benumb her

And time o'ercome her,

She dreams of summer,

And takes delight,

Dreaming and sleeping

In love's good keeping,

While rain is weeping

And no leaves cling;

Winds will come bringing her

Comfort, and singing her

Stories and songs and good news of the spring.

Draw the white curtain

Close, and be certain

She takes no hurt in

Her soft low bed;

She feels no colder,

And grows not older,

Though snows enfold her

From foot to head;

She turns not chilly

Like weed and lily

In marsh or hilly

High watershed,

Or green soft island

In lakes of highland;

She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead.

For all the hours,

Come sun, come showers,

Are friends of flowers,

And fairies all;

When frost entrapped her,

They came and lapped her

In leaves, and wrapped her

With shroud and pall;

In red leaves wound her,

With dead leaves bound her

Dead brows, and round her

A death-knell rang;

Rang the death-bell for her,

Sang, "is it well for her,

Well, is it well with you, rose?" they sang.

O what and where is

The rose now, fairies,

So shrill the air is,

So wild the sky?

Poor last of roses,

Her worst of woes is

The noise she knows is

The winter's cry;

His hunting hollo

Has scared the swallow;

Fain would she follow

And fain would fly:

But wind unsettles

Her poor last petals;

Had she but wings, and she would not die.

Come, as you love her,

Come close and cover

Her white face over,

And forth again

Ere sunset glances

On foam that dances,

Through lowering lances

Of bright white rain;

And make your playtime

Of winter's daytime,

As if the Maytime

Were here to sing;

As if the snowballs

Were soft like blowballs,

Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.

Each reed that grows in

Our stream is frozen,

The fields it flows in

Are hard and black;

The water-fairy

Waits wise and wary

Till time shall vary

And thaws come back.

"O sister, water,"

The wind besought her,

"O twin-born daughter

Of spring with me,

Stay with me, play with me,

Take the warm way with me,

Straight for the summer and oversea."

But winds will vary,

And wise and wary

The patient fairy

Of water waits;

All shrunk and wizen,

In iron prison,

Till spring re-risen

Unbar the gates;

Till, as with clamor

Of axe and hammer,

Chained streams that stammer

And struggle in straits

Burst bonds that shiver,

And thaws deliver

The roaring river in stormy spates.

In fierce March weather

White waves break tether,

And whirled together

At either hand,

Like weeds uplifted,

The tree-trunks rifted

In spars are drifted,

Like foam or sand,

Past swamp and sallow

And reed-beds callow,

Through pool and shallow,

To wind and lee,

Till, no more tongue-tied,

Full flood and young tide

Roar down the rapids and storm the sea.

As men's cheeks faded

On shores invaded,

When shorewards waded

The lords of fight;

When churl and craven

Saw hard on haven

The wide-winged raven

At mainmast height;

When monks affrighted

To windward sighted

The birds full-flighted

Of swift sea-kings;

So earth turns paler

When Storm the sailor

Steers in with a roar in the race of his wings.

O strong sea-sailor,

Whose cheek turns paler

For wind or hail or

For fear of thee?

O far sea-farer,

O thunder-bearer,

Thy songs are rarer

Than soft songs be.

O fleet-foot stranger,

O north-sea ranger

Through days of danger

And ways of fear,

Blow thy horn here for us,

Blow the sky clear for us,

Send us the song of the sea to hear.

Roll the strong stream of it

Up, till the scream of it

Wake from a dream of it

Children that sleep,

Seamen that fare for them

Forth, with a prayer for them:

Shall not God care for them

Angels not keep?

Spare not the surges

Thy stormy scourges;

Spare us the dirges

Of wives that weep.

Turn back the waves for us:

Dig no fresh graves for us,

Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.

O stout north-easter,

Sea-king, land-waster,

For all thine haste, or

Thy stormy skill,

Yet hadst thou never,

For all endeavour,

Strength to dissever

Or strength to spill,

Save of his giving

Who gave our living,

Whose hands are weaving

What ours fulfil;

Whose feet tread under

The storms and thunder;

Who made our wonder to work his will.

His years and hours,

His world's blind powers,

His stars and flowers,

His nights and days,

Sea-tide and river,

And waves that shiver,

Praise God, the giver

Of tongues to praise.

Winds in their blowing,

And fruits in growing;

Time in its going,

While time shall be;

In death and living,

With one thanksgiving,

Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea.