Poetry Revisited: Winter by John Howard Bryant

Winter

(From The Life and Poems of John Howard Bryant: 1894-96)

The day had been a calm and sunny day,
And tinged with amber was the sky at even;
The fleecy clouds at length had rolled away,
And lay in furrows on the eastern heaven;—
The moon arose and shed a glimmering ray,
And round her orb a misty circle lay.

The hoar-frost glittered on the naked heath,
The roar of distant winds was loud and deep,
The dry leaves rustled in each passing breath,
And the gay world was lost in quiet sleep.
Such was the time when, on the landscape brown
Through a December air the snow came down.

The morning came, the dreary morn, at last,
And showed the whitened waste. The shivering herd
Lowed on the hoary meadow-ground, and fast
Fell the light flakes upon the earth unstirred;
The forest firs with glittering snows o’erlaid
Stood like hoar priests in robes of white arrayed.

John Howard Bryant
(1807–1902)

Book Review: The Winter of Artifice by Anaïs Nin

Originally, I intended to close my cycle of reviews for the Books on France 2014 reading challenge only in two weeks with the novel Voyage d’hiver by Amélie Nothomb, but unfortunately it seems that this work of the Belgian author – unlike most others – hasn’t been translated into English yet. As a result, I had to change my plans and look for another France-related book with the word WINTER in the title (»»» see my post on the current special). In the end I picked a collection of three novellas of which two are set in France: The Winter of Artifice by Anaïs Nin, namely the original published in Paris in 1939 which is available as a facsimile edition. The author wrote her diary-style stories revolving around love and passion in English although her mother tongue was French.

Reading Bingo 2014

Already in November Emma from Book Around the Corner posted a meme called Reading Bingo on her blog. She was inspired to it by Marina Sofia’s post on Finding Time to Write who had come across it in a post on Cleopatra Loves Books. Obviously, it’s something that makes the round like a chain letter, but good ideas always deserve being spread. I decided to follow suit today using it to make a first and necessarily fragmentary balance of the almost past book blogging year.

And now let’s start with the 

Poetry Revisited: A Winter Ride by Amy Lowell

A Winter Ride

(from A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass: 1912)

Who shall declare the joy of the running!
Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!
Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,
Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light.
Everything mortal has moments immortal,
Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright.

So with the stretch of the white road before me,
Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun,
Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue shadows,
Strong with the strength of my horse as we run.
Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight!
Joy! With the vigorous earth I am one.

Amy Lowell
(1874-1925)

Book Review: A Monkey in Winter by Antoine Blondin

Click on the index card to enlarge it!

Literature is (or should be) a reproduction of reality and therefore it often portrays people who drink more than they should, and even worse, people who are slipping or have already slipped into the vicious circle of alcoholism. Authors – especially those who are known for their own excesses in drinking – seem to love displaying them in their desperate, though useless attempts to find an easy way out of their problems or at least “cheerful” oblivion. Usually, a drinking or drunk protagonist just serves plot development or character study, but it’s rare that an entire novel revolves around the short-lived pleasures of drinking like A Monkey in Winter by Antoine Blondin. It’s my last but one contribution to the Books on France 2014 Reading Challenge.

My WINTER Books Special

A Literary WINTER Expedition
from 1 December 2014 to 28 February 2015

Last year I dedicated the month of December to novels connected to Christmas. This year I decided to make a three-month special featuring books with the word WINTER in the English title. Admittedly it’s a rather arbitrary way to choose a read, but it brought surprisingly many literary works to my attention which I might never ever have come across otherwise because they have never been on bestselling lists and/or the author isn’t particularly renowned (any longer).

The result of my extensive search is an interesting and varied list of 50 books, mainly novels and a few collections of short stories, but also the one or other non-fiction. Lamentably I was forced to rule out from review several works of non-English-speaking authors since I couldn’t find any English editions. From the remaining lot I picked thirteen books, some famous, some new, and some forgotten ones. As for the rest of my WINTER bibliography… maybe some other time!

Poetry Revisited: The Winter’s Come by John Clare

The Winter’s Come

(c. 1850)

Sweet chestnuts brown like soling leather turn;
The larch trees, like the colour of the Sun;
That paled sky in the Autumn seemed to burn,
What a strange scene before us now does run--
Red, brown, and yellow, russet, black, and dun;
White thorn, wild cherry, and the poplar bare;
The sycamore all withered in the sun.
No leaves are now upon the birch tree there:
All now is stript to the cold wintry air.

See, not one tree but what has lost its leaves--
And yet the landscape wears a pleasing hue.
The winter chill on his cold bed receives
Foliage which once hung oer the waters blue.
Naked and bare the leafless trees repose.
Blue-headed titmouse now seeks maggots rare,
Sluggish and dull the leaf-strewn river flows;
That is not green, which was so through the year
Dark chill November draweth to a close.

Tis Winter, and I love to read indoors,
When the Moon hangs her crescent up on high;
While on the window shutters the wind roars,
And storms like furies pass remorseless by.
How pleasant on a feather bed to lie,
Or, sitting by the fire, in fancy soar
With Dante or with Milton to regions high,
Or read fresh volumes we've not seen before,
Or oer old Burton's Melancholy pore.

John Clare
(1793-1864)