Brueghel's Winter
Walter de la Mare 1873 (Charlton, London) – 1956 (Twickenham)
Jagg'd mountain peaks and skies ice-green
Wall in the wild, cold scene below.
Churches, farms, bare copse, the sea
In freezing quiet of winter show;
Where ink-black shapes on fields in flood
Curling, skating, and sliding go.
To left, a gabled tavern; a blaze;
Peasants; a watching child; and lo,
Muffled, mute--beneath naked trees
In sharp perspective set a-row--
Trudge huntsmen, sinister spears aslant,
Dogs snuffling behind them in the snow;
And arrowlike, lean, athwart the air
Swoops into space a crow.
But flame, nor ice, nor piercing rock,
Nor silence, as of a frozen sea,
Nor that slant inward infinite line
Of signboard, bird, and hill, and tree,
Give more than subtle hint of him
Who squandered here life's mystery.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 37 sec read
- 709 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | XABACAXAXACAXA XBXBXB |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 714 |
Words | 123 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 14, 6 |
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"Brueghel's Winter" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/38274/brueghel's-winter>.
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