Winter Day.....

 "In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer..." -Albert Camus

 WINTER DAY by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) (excerpts)

 The sun that brief (winter) day rose cheerless over hills of gray.

 And, darkly circled, gave at noon a sadder light than waning moon.

 Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy,

 A portent seeming less than threat,

 It sank from sight before it set. 

 A chill no coat, however stout, of homespun stuff could quite shut out.

 A hard, dull bitterness of cold, that checked, the circling race

 The coming of the snow-storm told, the wind blew east, we heard the roar

 Of Ocean on his wintry shore, and felt the strong pulse throbbing there

Beat with low rhythm of inland air.

 Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, brought in the wood from out of doors,

 Littered the stalls, and raked down the herd's grass for the cows;

 Heard the horse whinnying for his corn, and sharply clashing horn on horn,

 Impatient down the stanchion rows the cattle shake their walnut bows;

 While, peering from his early perch upon the scaffold's pole of birch,

 The cock his crested helmet bent and down his querulous challenge sent.

 Photographs 2018 "Winter Day by J. G. Whittier from A Treasury of Great Poems 1942" From the foundations of the english spirit to the outstanding poetry of our own time with lives of the poets and historical settings selected and integrated by Lous Untermeyer. NY Simon and Schuster "