Poetry Revisited: First Winter Song by Alfred Perceval Graves

First Winter Song

(from The Irish Poems of Alfred Perceval Graves
Volume I: Songs of the Gael. A Gaelic story-telling: 1908)

Take my tidings!
Stags contend;
Snows descend—
Summer’s end!

A chill wind raging;
The sun low keeping,
Swift to set
O’er seas high sweeping.

Dull red the fern;
Shapes are shadows:
Wild geese mourn
O’er misty meadows.

Keen cold limes each weaker wing.
Icy times—
Such I sing!
Take my tidings!

Alfred Perceval Graves (1846-1931)
Anglo-Irish poet, songwriter, folklorist and school inspector