5 Beautiful Poems About Winter

Nobel Prize Winning French author, Albert Camus, said: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”

Winter is a cool season which gives us a chance to be with ourselves and reflect on life in our warm homes.

No doubt, the melancholy of winter is breathtakingly beautiful. The nights are long, days are short and the whole environment turns into tranquillity.

Although the days seem to be cheerless and dark, the warmth of a blanket, a hot cup of coffee and an enchanting book couldn’t be enjoyed more that it is in winter.

DESIblitz brings you our five all-time favourite poems about winter.

‘Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This a beautiful poem which reminds us of the endless opportunities and abundant duties one must fulfil before he parts from this world.

‘The Sky is Low, the Clouds are Mean’ by Emily Dickinson

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How someone treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.

Emily Dickinson was a renowned American poet who lived from 1830-1886.

An introverted character for most of her life, she compares winter to human life using nature’s imageries in this exquisite poem.

‘Voronezh’ by Anna Akhmatova

And the town is frozen solid in a vice,
Trees, walls, snow, beneath a glass.
Over crystal, on slippery tracks of ice,
the painted sleighs and I, together, pass.
And over St Peter’s there are poplars, crows
there’s a pale green dome there that glows,
dim in the sun-shrouded dust.
The field of heroes lingers in my thought,
Kulikovo’s barbarian battleground.
The frozen poplars, like glasses for a toast,
clash now, more noisily, overhead.
As though it was our wedding, and the crowd
were drinking to our health and happiness.
But Fear and the Muse take turns to guard
the room where the exiled poet is banished,
and the night, marching at full pace,
of the coming dawn, has no knowledge.

Anna Akhmatova was a much-admired writer from Russia.

Voronezh is a historical city, close to the south of Moscow. She describes the wintery city with a burdened heart full of melancholy.

‘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.

Robert Stevenson was a Scottish novelist and poet, famous for his book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

In this poem, he illustrates the landscape in winter by using beautiful metaphors and intense imagery.

‘Talking in Their Sleep’ by  Edith M. Thomas

“You think I am dead,”
The apple tree said,
“Because I have never a leaf to show –
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull gray mosses over me grow!

“But I’m still alive in trunk and shoot;
The buds of next May
I fold away –
But I pity the withered grass at my root.”

“You think I am dead,”
The quick grass said,
“Because I have parted with stem and blade!
But under the ground,
I am safe and sound
With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.

“I’m all alive, and ready to shoot,
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here –
But I pity the flower without branch or root.”

“You think I am dead,”
A soft voice said,
“Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died, but close I hide
In a plumy seed that the wind has sown.

“Patient I wait through the long winter hours;
You will see me again –
I shall laugh at you then,
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.

Edith Matilda Thomas was an American poet who was known for capturing the vigour and excitement of modern life in most of her work.

In very simple words she says life is a roller coaster ride in this poem, and compares the wintery landscape, and death as a temporary moment in time.

Whether you’re a fan of poetry, or just bored on a cold winter’s day, this collection of thought provoking poems are guaranteed to stir up some emotions, and make you think about the chilly weather in a new light.