Winter Remembered

John Crowe Ransom 1888 (Pulaski) – 1974 (Gambier)



Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.

Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks,
And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,
I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,
Far from my cause, my proper heat and center.

Better to walk forth in the frozen air
And wash my wound in the snows; that would be healing;
Because my heart would throb less painful there,
Being caked with cold, and past the smart of feeling.

And where I walked, the murderous winter blast
Would have this body bowed, these eyeballs streaming,
And though I think this heart's blood froze not fast
It ran too small to spare one drop for dreaming.

Dear love, these fingers that had known your touch,
And tied our separate forces first together,
Were ten poor idiot fingers not worth much,
Ten frozen parsnips hanging in the weather.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 01, 2023

52 sec read
123

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EBEB FBFB GDGD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 939
Words 173
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

John Crowe Ransom

John Crowe Ransom was an educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. more…

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