This is a poem that gave me great satisfaction to write and actually finish! It contains vague references to Byron‘s ‘Ode to Napoleon’ and is an attempt to compare Winter to that self-proclaimed Emperor. However, I hope that the text can stand alone without the need to dust off old books or invest in new ones, but , for thise interested in poetry in general, it is worth at least glancing at ‘Ode to Napoleon’.
Ode to Winter was written in 2016 at HMP Highpoint thanks to a prison officer who was kind enough to print out ‘Ode to Napoleon’ for me from the internet – yet another indication of human beings overcoming adversity through the goodwill of others. I hope one day that that officer will read this!
I confess that I only found the Byron poem, for the first time, through the music of Arnold Schoenberg of which I have been fascinated by since the early 70’s. So it is a mundane example of how different art forms can stimulate each other and for those that are interested in the source, please click on the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZdsOHRDMEA
Ode to Winter
‘Tis done – the Gregorian date derived
Today – the astronomical Spring
The vernal equinox has arrived
Yesterday’s weather no longer king
But birth begins, new life holds sway
Now past – the saddest, shortest day
You, Winter, were that nameless thing
Your depths of darkness we’ve survived
Despite disasters, man has thrived
Did you think our souls would simply die
That you might conquer every season
That we, our heads in hands, would cry
As if in loss of rhyme or reason?
You taught us well the elements to fight
The deprivations of darkest night
To resist your deeds – no act of treason
Our triumph is not vanity
Our Spring sustains our sanity
And those that by your force have died
Washed away in burst-bank rivers
Your clumsy, climatic homicide
They yielded to their shakes and shivers
The warlike waves your wrath was bringing
Left sailors to their life rafts clinging
Mere fortune favoured few survivors
Of avalanche snow and frozen lake
Yours is a power that makes men quake
But life lingers, human birth continues
Despite our woes, population grows
Repaired the broken bones and sinews
Man preoccupied with other foes
His real enemies are of his kind
They share with him his frame of mind
Even as it rains, or hails, or snows
Man, on his own world, wages war
As share of space he fights for more
Autumn may shed its million leaves
And Summer heat may burn our crops
More produce lost than that by thieves
Nature’s cycle never stops
Buffeted by a wind that’s bolder
That makes wood’s embers smoke and smoulder
In valleys or on mountain tops
Volcanoes spew their streams of stone
Your fearsome force is not alone
Yet there was a day when Winter ruled
When man was but a child
Now no-one is by seasons fooled
Whenever weather’s wild
Shielded from your icy blast
Humanity’s deadly die is cast
And earth is thus defiled
You cannot joy of Spring destroy
Whatever weapons you deploy