icy mornings

Ice & Snow

People never tell of ice
Or the snow that glitters nice
Or of the icy crunchy snow
Of that most people do not know
The crunch that sounds beneath your feet
As your sole and ice compete
When in the morning as you wake
You see a single white snow flake
You look out of the iced window
The look out seems so very low
Because the snow fell all night
It has left behind its sheet of white

Helen Windass

Fire and Ice

BY ROBERT FROST

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Winter-Time
by Robert Louis Stevenson

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; Blinks but an hour or two; and then, A blood-red orange, sets again. Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise; And shivering in my nakedness, By the cold candle, bathe and dress. Close by the jolly fire I sit To warm my frozen bones a bit; Or with a reindeer-sled, explore The colder countries round the door. When to go out, my nurse doth wrap Me in my comforter and cap; The cold wind burns my face, and blows Its frosty pepper up my nose. Black are my steps on silver sod; Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; And tree and house, and hill and lake, Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

How like a winter hath my absence been (Sonnet 97)
by William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December’s bareness every where! And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time; The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burden of the prime, Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease: Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit; For summer and his pleasures wait on thee, And, thou away, the very birds are mute: Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer, That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

These beautiful icy mornings are magical for me. There is something other-worldly about the quietness before anyone wakes up and starts moving around. The air is so crisp and clean.

Here in the cottage garden the birds wait for their food. The robin shows off his red breast and the pigeons chase each other tirelessly around the vegetable patch killing time until I bring their bread out for them.