Why did you come when the trees were bare? <br />Why did you come with the wintry air? <br />When the faint note dies in the robin's throat, <br />And the gables drip and the white flakes float? <br /> <br />What a strange, strange season to choose to come, <br />When the heavens are blind and the earth is dumb: <br />When nought is left living to dirge the dead, <br />And even the snowdrop keeps its bed! <br /> <br />Could you not come when woods are green? <br />Could you not come when lambs are seen? <br />When the primrose laughs from its childlike sleep, <br />And the violets hide and the bluebells peep? <br /> <br />When the air as your breath is sweet, and skies <br />Have all but the soul of your limpid eyes, <br />And the year, growing confident day by day, <br />Weans lusty June from the breast of May? <br /> <br />Yet had you come then, the lark had lent <br />In vain his music, the thorn its scent, <br />In vain the woodbine budded, in vain <br />The rippling smile of the April rain. <br /> <br />Your voice would have silenced merle and thrush, <br />And the rose outbloomed would have blushed to blush, <br />And Summer, seeing you, paused, and known <br />That the glow of your beauty outshone its own. <br /> <br />So, timely you came, and well you chose, <br />You came when most needed, my winter rose. <br />From the snow I pluck you, and fondly press <br />Your leaves 'twixt the leaves of my leaflessness.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-winter-rose-2/
