L’Hyver
by Théodore-Agrippa D’Aubigne (1552-1630)

Mes volages humeurs, plus sterilles que belles,
S’en vont; et je leur dis: Vous sentez, irondelles,
S’esloigner la chaleur et le froid arriver.
Allez nicher ailleurs, pour ne tascher, impures,
Ma couche de babil et ma table d’ordures;
Laissez dormir en paix la nuict de mon hyver.

D’un seul poinct le soleil n’esloigne l’hemisphere;
Il jette moins d’ardeur, mais autant de lumière.
Je change sans regrets, lorsque je me repens
Des frivoles amours et de leur artifice.
J’ayme l’hyver qui vient purger mon cœur de vice,
Comme de peste l’air, la terre de serpens.

Mon chef blanchit dessous les neiges entassées,
Le soleil, qui reluit, les eschaulfe, glacées.
Mais ne les peut dissoudre, au plus court de ses mois.
Fondez, neiges; venez dessus mon cœur descendre,
Qu’encores il ne puisse allumer de ma cendre
Du brazier, comme il fit des flammes autrefois.

Mais quoi! serai-je esteint devant ma vie esteinte?
Ne luira plus sur moi la flamme vive et sainte,
Le zèle flamboyant de la sainte maison?
Je fais aux saints autels holocaustes des restes.
De glace aux feux impurs, et de naphte aux célestes:
Clair et sacré flambeau, non funèbre tison!

Voici moins de plaisirs, mais voici moins de peines.
Le rossignol se taist, se taisent les Sereines:
Nous ne voyons cueillir ni les fruits ni les fleurs;
L’espérance n’est plus bien souvent tromperesse;
L’hyver jouit de tout. Bienheureuse vieillesse,
La saison de l’usage, et non plus des labeurs!

Mais la mort n’est pas loin; cette mort est suivie
D’un vivre sans mourir, fin d’une fausse vie:
Vie de nostve vie, et mort de nostre mort.
Qui hait la seureté, pour aimer le naufrage?
Qui a jamais esté si friant de voyage.
Que la longueur en soit plus douce que le port?

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On the Beach at Fontana
by James Joyce (1882-1941)

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!

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“The time draws near the birth of Christ”
Section XXVIII of In Memoriam
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
      The moon is hid; the night is still;
      The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
      From far and near, on mead and moor,
      Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
      That now dilate, and now decrease,
      Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
      I almost wish’d no more to wake,
      And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
      For they controll’d me when a boy;
      They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

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A Dream of Summer
by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

Bland as the morning breath of June
      The southwest breezes play;
And, through its haze, the winter noon
      Seems warm as summer’s day.
The snow-plumed Angel of the North
      Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
      Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
      The muskrat leaves his nook,
The bluebird in the meadow brakes
      Is singing with the brook.
“Bear up, O Mother Nature!” cry
      Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
“Our winter voices prophesy
      Of summer days to thee!”

So, in those winters of the soul,
      By bitter blasts and drear
O’erswept from Memory’s frozen pole,
      Will sunny days appear.
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
      The soul its living powers,
And how beneath the winter’s snow
      Lie germs of summer flowers!

The Night is mother of the Day,
      The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay
      The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
      Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all His works,
      Has left His hope with all!

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