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Famous Winter's Night Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Winter's Night poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous winter's night poems. These examples illustrate what a famous winter's night poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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by Thomson, James
...
Then breaking hence, he took his ardent flight
Through the blue infinite; and every star,
Which the clear concave of a winter's night
Pours on the eye, or astronomic tube,
Far-stretching, snatches from the dark abyss,
Or such as farther in successive skies
To fancy shine alone, at his approach
Blaz'd into suns, the living centre each
Of an harmonious system: all combin'd,
And rul'd unerring by that single power,
Which draws the stone projected to the ground. 

O unprofus...Read more of this...



by McGonagall, William Topaz
...end of time;
Your plays are read in family ciFcles with wonder and delight,
While seated around the fireside on a cold winter's night....Read more of this...

by McGonagall, William Topaz
...admirers it will be often read;
And fill their minds with wonder and delight,
And wile away the tedious hours on a cold winter's night.
He has also written about the Bards of the Bible,
Which occupied nearly three years in which he was not idle,
Because when he sits down to write he does it with might and main,
And to get an interview with him it would be almost vain,
And in that he is always right,
For the Bible tells us whatever your hands findeth to do,
Do it with all ...Read more of this...

by Keats, John
...ew, 
Cloys with tasting: What do then? 15 
Sit thee by the ingle, when 
The sear ****** blazes bright, 
Spirit of a winter's night; 
When the soundless earth is muffled, 
And the cak¨¨d snow is shuffled 20 
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon; 
When the Night doth meet the Noon 
In a dark conspiracy 
To banish Even from her sky. 
Sit thee there, and send abroad, 25 
With a mind self-overawed, 
Fancy, high-commission'd:¡ªsend her! 
She has vassals to attend her:...Read more of this...

by Byron, George (Lord)
...coloured with a lifeless red,
Which stands thereon like stiffened gore
Upon the slain when battle's o'er,
And some long winter's night hath shed
Its frost o'er every tombless head,
So cold and stark, the raven's beak
May peck unpierced each frozen cheek:
'Twas a wild waste of underwood, 
And here and there a chestnut stood, 
The strong oak, and the hardy pine;
But far apart - and well it were,
Or else a different lot were mine -
The boughs gave way, and did not tear
My limbs;...Read more of this...



by Yeats, William Butler
...man right;
He has had enough of medding who can please
A young girl in the indolence of her youth,
Or an old man upon a winter's night....Read more of this...

by Drayton, Michael
.... 

Yet my pour rustic Muse 
 Nothing can move her, 
Nor the means I can use, 
 Though her true lover: 
Many a long winter's night 
 Have I waked for her, 
Yet this my piteous plight 
 Nothing can stir her. 
All thy sands, silver Trent, 
 Down to the Humber, 
The sighs that I have spent 
 Never can number. 
 On thy bank, 
 In a rank, 
 Let thy swans sing her, 
 And with their music 
 Along let them bring her....Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...nce of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
Proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter's night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
And through the angry marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They'll envy us the dazzling times
When sacrifice absolved our earth.

Some ancient man with silver locks
Will lift his weary face to say:
'War was a fiend...Read more of this...

by Laurence Dunbar, Paul
...r and curtsey low,
Balance and forward and swing.
Corners are draughty and meadows are white,
This is the game for a winter's night.[Pg 171]
Hands around, hands around,
Trip it, and not too slow;
Clear is the fiddle and sweet its sound,
Keep the girls' cheeks aglow.
Still let your movements be dainty and light,
This is the game for a winter's night.
Back to back, back to back,
Turn to your place again;
Never let ...Read more of this...

by Noyes, Alfred
...like a dog on the highway,
And he lay his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cluody seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
 A highwayman comes riding--
 Riding--riding--
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his ...Read more of this...

by Hugo, Victor
...the dark network of their undergrowth, 
 Pallid his aspect; and the earth was brown. 
 Starless and moonless, a rough winter's night 
 Was letting down her lappets o'er the mist. 
 This—nothing more: old Faun, dull sky, dark wood. 
 
 Poor, helpless marble, how I've pitied it! 
 Less often man—the harder of the two. 
 
 So, then, without a word that might offend 
 His ear deformed—for well the marble hears 
 The voice of thought—I said to him: "You hail 
 From the...Read more of this...

by McKay, Claude
...y night they stealthily had stol'n away. 


II 

And suddenly my thoughts then turned to you 
Who came to me upon a winter's night, 
When snow-sprites round my attic window flew, 
Your hair disheveled, eyes aglow with light. 
My heart was like the weather when you came, 
The wanton winds were blowing loud and long; 
But you, with joy and passion all aflame, 
You danced and sang a lilting summer song. 
I made room for you in my little bed, 
Took covers from the clo...Read more of this...

by von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
...rmur, stream, the vale along,

Never cease thy sighs;
Murmur, whisper to my song

Answering melodies!

When thou in the winter's night

Overflow'st in wrath,
Or in spring-time sparklest bright,

As the buds shoot forth.

He who from the world retires,

Void of hate, is blest;
Who a friend's true love inspires,

Leaning on his breast!

That which heedless man ne'er knew,

Or ne'er thought aright,
Roams the bosom's labyrinth through,

Boldly into night.

1789.*...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...Let my soul, a shining tree, 
Silver branches lift towards thee, 
Where on a hallowed winter’s night 
The clear-eyed angels may alight. 

And if there should be tempests in
My spirit, let them surge like din 
Of noble melodies at war; 
With fervour of such blades of triumph as are 
Flashed in white orisons of saints who go 
On shafts of glory to the ec...Read more of this...

by Sassoon, Siegfried
...Trudging by Corbie Ridge one winter's night,
(Unless old hearsay memories tricked his sight)
Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky
He watched a nosing lorry grinding on,
And straggling files of men; when these were gone,
A double limber and six mules went by,
Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud
To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago.
Then darkness hid them with a rain...Read more of this...

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Book: Shattered Sighs