All.

De Saedeleer, Paysage à Etikhove, 1931

SONG

I love the jocund dance, 

The softly breathing song, 

Where innocent eyes do glance,

And where lisps the maiden's tongue.  

I love the laughing vale, 

I love the echoing hills, 

Where mirth does never fail, 

And the jolly swain laughs his fill. 

I love the pleasant cot,

I love the innocent bow'r,

Where white and brown is our lot,

Or fruit in the midday hour. 

I love the oaken seat,

Beneath the oaken tree,

Where all the old villagers meet,

And laugh our sports to see. 

I love our neighbors all,

But Kitty, I better love thee;

And love them I ever shall;

But thou art all to me.

William Blake

Sure.

 de Saedeleer, Winter on the River, 1906

WINTER TREES

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

William Carlos Williams

Find.

De Saedeleer, The Forest in Winter, 1925

WINTER WALK

The holly bush, a sober lump of green,

Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,

And smiles at winter be it eer so keen

With all the leafy luxury of May.

And O it is delicious, when the day

In winter's loaded garment keenly blows

And turns her back on sudden falling snows,

To go where gravel pathways creep between

Arches of evergreen that scarce let through

A single feather of the driving storm;

And in the bitterest day that ever blew

The walk will find some places still and warm

Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm

To little birds that flirt and start away.

John Clare

Wassailed.

de Saedeleer, Forest in the Winter, 1925

Yule, is when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half.   Starting the next morning at sunrise, the sun climbs just a little higher and stays a little longer in the sky each day.  Known as Solstice Night, or the longest night of the year, much celebration was to be had as the ancestors awaited the rebirth of the Oak King, the Sun King, the Giver of Life that warmed the frozen Earth and made her to bear forth from seeds protected through the fall and winter in her womb.  Bonfires were lit in the fields, and crops and trees were "wassailed" with toasts of spiced cider.

Linda Raedisch, The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year

Gathers.

de Saedeller, A Valley in Wales, 1916

The END of a WINTER DAY

The leaves drift toward the earth like ships to land, 

A voyage launched from timbers' great lofty berths, 

Toward harbors safe, concealed from raider bands, 

Of icy galleons coursing wintry dearth. 

Squirrels don thick coats against Wind's numbing dare, 

Mount last determined searches 'long the ground. 

Brown grass conceals the season's paltry fare, 

As hopeful birds scratch for what may be found. 

Through frosted windows glow the hearth's warm light, 

As fading day casts shadows 'cross the lawn, 

And grey meets grey as winter gathers might, 

Undaunted as the chimney starts to yawn. 

Farewell brave day as twilight draweth nigh. 

Perchance on morrow sun will gather high.

Dan Young

Mind.

 de Saedeleer, Winter Landscape in Etikhove,  1914

THE SNOW MAN

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens

Unearthly.

de Saedeleer, A Forest in Winter, 1925

Clouded with snow

The cold winds blow,

And shrill on leafless bough

The robin with its burning breast

Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,

Day's journey done,

Sheds its last ebbing light

On fields in leagues of beauty spread

Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,

And spark by spark,

The frost-fires kindle, and soon

Over that sea of frozen foam

Floats the white moon.

Walter de la Mare