Poetry Revisited: Sonnet 27 by Anna Seward

Sonnet 27: See Wither'd Winter, Bending Low His Head

(from Original Sonnets on Various Subjects:
And Odes Paraphrased from Horace: 1799)

See wither'd WINTER, bending low his head;
His ragged locks stiff with the hoary dew;
His eyes, like frozen lakes, of livid hue;
His train, a sable cloud, with murky red
Streak'd.--Ah! behold his nitrous breathings shed
Petrific death!--Lean, wailful Birds pursue,
On as he sweeps o'er the dun lonely moor,
Amid the battling blast of all the Winds,
That, while their sleet the climbing Sailor blinds,
Lash the white surges to the sounding shore.
So com'st thou, WINTER, finally to doom
The sinking year; and with thy ice-dropt sprays,
Cypress and yew, engarland her pale tomb,
Her vanish'd hopes, and aye-departed days.

Anna Seward
(1742-1809)