Seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter)

I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was specter-gray, And Winter’s dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day.

In the bleak midwinter 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 midwinter, Long ago.

There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons— That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes—

Inebriate of Air—am I— And Debauchee of Dew— Reeling—through endless summer days— From inns of Molten Blue—

These are the days when Birds come back— A very few—a Bird or two— To take a backward look. These are the days when skies resume The old—old sophistries of June— A blue and gold mistake.

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.

Days decrease, And autumn grows, autumn in everything.

Oh, to be in England now that April’s there, And whoever wakes in England sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!

The year’s at the spring And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hillside’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn: God’s in his heaven— All’s right with the world.

Come, ye thankful people, come, Raise the song of harvest-home; All is safely gathered in, Ere the winter storms begin.

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crispèd and sere— The leaves they were withering and sere: It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year.

The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.

Up from the meadows rich with corn, Clear in the cool September morn.

The Night is mother of the Day, The Winter of the Spring, And ever upon old Decay The greenest mosses cling.

It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers.

St. Agnes’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold. The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold.

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher.

The English winter—ending in July, To recommence in August.

Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

’Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.