Poem of the Day: ‘Winter: A Dirge’

Robert Burns (1759–1796) has appeared once before in the Sun’s Poem of the Day feature, but in these wintery days, it seems worth adding another. “Winter: A Dirge” is an early Burns poem, probably written around 1775, when the poet was 16 and still a little uneven in his poetic outpourings. The quotation marks around the first line of the second stanza, for example, Burns put in to indicate an unnecessary borrowing from Edward Young’s once enormously popular “Night-Thoughts” (1742–1745).Still, the young poet shows off his talent in the three eight-line stanzas, written in the ballad meter of alternating four- and three-foot lines, rhymed on the three-foot lines — with an additional internal rhyme in the four-foot lines. Not an easy task, particularly when the poem celebrates winter’s grimness as both fitting the poet’s mood and teaching him about peaceful resignation to the will of the Divine.Winter: A Dirgeby Robert BurnsThe wintry west extends his blast, And hail and rain does blaw;Or, the stormy north sends driving forth The blinding sleet and snaw:While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down, And roars frae bank to brae;And bird and beast in covert rest, And pass the heartless day.“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,” The joyless winter-dayLet others fear, to me more dear Than all the pride of May:The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul, My griefs it seems to join;The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine!Thou Power Supreme whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil,Here, firm, I rest; they must be best, Because they are Thy will!Then all I want — O do Thou grant This one request of mine. —Since to enjoy Thou dost deny, Assist me to resign.___________________________________________ With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.

Poem of the Day: ‘Winter: A Dirge’

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