Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER ... IN WINTER MONTHS, by GILBERT WHITE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER ... IN WINTER MONTHS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The imprisoned winds slumber within their caves
Last Line: And float the deluged paths and miry fields.
Subject(s): Air; Snow; Weather; Wind; Winter


TH' imprisoned winds slumber within their caves
Fast-bound: the fickle vane, emblem of change,
Wavers no more, long-settling to a point.
All nature nodding seems composed: thick steams
From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the day,
'Like a dark ceiling stand'; slow through the air
Gossamer floats, or stretched from blade to blade
The wavy network whitens all the field.
Pushed by the weightier atmosphere, up springs
The ponderous mercury, from scale to scale
Mounting, amidst the Torricellian tube.
While high in air, and poised upon his wings
Unseen, the soft, enamoured wood-lark runs
Through all his maze of melody;—the brake
Loud with the blackbird's bolder note resounds.
Soothed by the genial warmth, the cawing rook
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate,
Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest-torn.
The ploughman inly smiles to see up turn
His mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop:
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds:
E'en pining sickness feels a short relief.
The happy schoolboy brings transported forth
His long-forgotten scourge, and giddy gig:
O'er the white paths he whirls the rolling hoop,
Or triumphs in the dusty fields of taw.
Not so the museful sage:—abroad he walks
Contemplative, if haply he may find
What cause controls the tempest's rage, or whence
Amidst the savage season winter smiles.
For days, for weeks prevails the placid calm.
At length some drops prelude a change: the sun
With ray refracted bursts the parting gloom;
When all the chequered sky is one bright glare.
Mutters the wind at eve: th' horizon round
With angry aspect scowls: down rush the showers,
And float the deluged paths and miry fields.





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