# Poems and Ballads (second series)/Winter in Northumberland

Previously printed (under the tentative title Child’s Song in Winter) in The Fortnightly Review, January, 1867, pp. 19-20.
FOUR SONGS OF FOUR SEASONS.
I.
WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND.
i.
The wet skies harden; The gates are barred on The summer side: 'Shut out the flower‑time, Sunbeam and shower‑time; Make way for our time,' Wild winds have cried. Green once and cheery, The woods, worn weary, Sigh as the dreary Weak sun goes home:
A great wind grapples The wave, and dapples The dead green floor of the sea with foam.
ii.
And salt‑sea foreland, Our noisy norland Resounds and rings; Waste waves thereunder Are blown in sunder, And winds make thunder With cloudwide wings; Sea‑drift makes dimmer The beacon's glimmer; Nor sail nor swimmer Can try the tides; And snowdrifts thicken Where, when leaves quicken, Under the heather the sundew hides.
iii.
Moorside and headland, Are white as dead land, Are all as one; Nor honied heather, Nor bells to gather, Fair with fair weather And faithful sun: Fierce frost has eaten All flowers that sweeten The fells rain‑beaten; And winds their foes Have made the snow's bed Down in the rose‑bed; Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose.
iv.
Than any sleeper;
Sweet dreams will keep her All day, all night; Though sleep benumb her And time o'ercome her, She dreams of summer, And takes delight, Dreaming and sleeping In love's good keeping, While rain is weeping And no leaves cling; Winds will come bringing her Comfort, and singing her Stories and songs and good news of the spring.
v.
Close, and be certain She takes no hurt in Her soft low bed;
She feels no colder, And grows not older, Though snows enfold her From foot to head; She turns not chilly Like weed and lily In marsh or hilly High watershed, Or green soft island In lakes of highland; She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead.
vi.
Come sun, come showers, Are friends of flowers, And fairies all; When frost entrapped her, They came and lapped her In leaves, and wrapped her With shroud and pall;
In red leaves wound her, With dead leaves bound her Dead brows, and round her A death‑knell rang; Rang the death‑bell for her, Sang, 'is it well for her, Well, is it well with you, rose?' they sang.
vii.
The rose now, fairies, So shrill the air is, So wild the sky? Poor last of roses, Her worst of woes is The noise she knows is The winter's cry; His hunting hollo Has scared the swallow; Fain would she follow And fain would fly:
But wind unsettles Her poor last petals; Had she but wings, and she would not die.
viii.
Come close and cover Her white face over, And forth again Ere sunset glances On foam that dances, Through lowering lances Of bright white rain; And make your playtime Of winter's daytime, As if the Maytime Were here to sing; As if the snowballs Were soft like blowballs, Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.
ix.
Our stream is frozen, The fields it flows in Are hard and black; The water‑fairy Waits wise and wary Till time shall vary And thaws come back. 'O sister, water,' The wind besought her, 'O twin‑born daughter Of spring with me, Stay with me, play with me, Take the warm way with me, Straight for the summer and oversea.'
x.
And wise and wary
The patient fairy Of water waits; All shrunk and wizen, In iron prison, Till spring re‑risen Unbar the gates; Till, as with clamour Of axe and hammer, Chained streams that stammer And struggle in straits Burst bonds that shiver, And thaws deliver The roaring river in stormy spates.
xi.
White waves break tether, And whirled together At either hand,
Like weeds uplifted, The tree‑trunks rifted In spars are drifted, Like foam or sand, Past swamp and sallow And reed‑beds callow, Through pool and shallow, To wind and lee, Till, no more tongue‑tied, Full flood and young tide Roar down the rapids and storm the sea.
xii.
On shores invaded, When shorewards waded The lords of fight; When churl and craven Saw hard on haven The wide‑winged raven At mainmast height
When monks affrighted To windward sighted The birds full‑flighted Of swift sea‑kings; So earth turns paler When Storm the sailor Steers in with a roar in the race of his wings.
xiii.
Whose cheek turns paler For wind or hail or For fear of thee? O far sea‑farer, O thunder‑bearer, Thy songs are rarer Than soft songs be. O fleet‑foot stranger, O north‑sea ranger Through days of danger And ways of fear,
Blow thy horn here for us, Blow the sky clear for us, Send us the song of the sea to hear.
xiv.
Up, till the scream of it Wake from a dream of it Children that sleep, Seamen that fare for them Forth, with a prayer for them; Shall not God care for them, Angels not keep? Spare not the surges Thy stormy scourges; Spare us the dirges Of wives that weep. Turn back the waves for us: Dig no fresh graves for us, Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.
xv.
Sea‑king, land‑waster, For all thine haste, or Thy stormy skill, Yet hadst thou never, For all endeavour, Strength to dissever Or strength to spill, Save of his giving Who gave our living, Whose hands are weaving What ours fulfil; Whose feet tread under The storms and thunder; Who made our wonder to work his will.
xvi.
His world's blind powers,
His stars and flowers, His nights and days, Sea‑tide and river, And waves that shiver, Praise God, the giver Of tongues to praise. Winds in their blowing, And fruits in growing; Time in its going, While time shall be; In death and living, With one thanksgiving, Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea.