“A Year’s Carols” – Algernon Charles Swinburne
by richibi
__________
happy poems about February are not
easy to find, nor are poems by any
poet written for each month of the
year
but here are Algernon Charles
Swinburne‘s “January” and “February”
from his “A Year’s Carols“
January
Hail, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm’s bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.
February
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of mire and rime,
Before thy pale and fitful face
The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace
Through skies the morning scarce may climb.
Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,
But lit with hopes that light the year’s.
March’ll have to wait
most of us have never even heard of
Swinburne, I actually thought he was
German, he’s not, he was English,
and decadent, apparently, like his
compatriots then, Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and Oscar Wilde, who
thought Swinburne, however, was
a sham
though he never received a Nobel prize,
he was nominated for one in literature
each year from 1903 to 1907, then
again in 1909
to Swinburne
Richard
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