Poem by Robert Seymour Bridges

January

Cold is the winter day, misty and dark:
  The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent;
And patches of thin snow outlying, mark
  The landscape with a drear disfigurement.

The trees their mournful branches lift aloft:
  The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust,
With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft;
  The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.

No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill
  And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs
Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill
  Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams.

Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring,
  Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies:
My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing,
  Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.

And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold
  To praise for wintry works not understood,
Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,
  Evil and good as one, and all as good.

1. Shorter Poems. Book I. 4. (The cliff-top has a carpet)
2. Shorter Poems. Book I. 2. Elegy (The wood is bare)
3. The Pinks Along My Garden Walks
4. The Palm Willow
5. A Robin

John Payne January ("THIS is the bitter birth-month of the year")

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