Analysis of Four Songs Of Four Seasons

I.  WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND
      OUTSIDE the garden
      The wet skies harden;
      The gates are barred on
            The summer side:
      "Shut out the flower-time,
      Sunbeam and shower-time;
      Make way for our time,"
            Wild winds have cried.
      Green once and cheery,
      The woods, worn weary,
      Sigh as the dreary
            Weak sun goes home:
      A great wind grapples
      The wave, and dapples
The dead green floor of the sea with foam.

Through fell and moorland,
      And salt-sea foreland,
      Our noisy norland
            Resounds and rings;
      Waste waves thereunder
      Are blown in sunder,
      And winds make thunder
            With cloudwide wings;
      Sea-drift makes dimmer
      The beacon's glimmer;
      Nor sail nor swimmer
            Can try the tides;
      And snowdrifts thicken
      Where, when leaves quicken,
Under the heather the sundew hides.

Green land and red land,
      Moorside and headland,
      Are white as dead land,
            Are all as one;
      Nor honied heather,
      Nor bells to gather,
      Fair with fair weather
            And faithful sun:
      Fierce frost has eaten
      All flowers that sweeten
      The fells rain-beaten;
            And winds their foes
      Have made the snow's bed
      Down in the rose-bed;
Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose.

Bury her deeper
      Than any sleeper;
      Sweet dreams will keep her
            All day, all night;
      Though sleep benumb her
      And time o'ercome her,
      She dreams of summer,
            And takes delight,
      Dreaming and sleeping
      In love's good keeping,
      While rain is weeping
            And no leaves cling;
      Winds will come bringing her
      Comfort, and singing her
Stories and songs and good news of the spring.

Draw the white curtain
      Close, and be certain
      She takes no hurt in
            Her soft low bed;
      She feels no colder,
      And grows not older,
      Though snows enfold her
            From foot to head;
      She turns not chilly
      Like weed and lily
      In marsh or hilly
            High watershed,
      Or green soft island
      In lakes of highland;
She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead.

For all the hours,
      Come sun, come showers,
      Are friends of flowers,
            And fairies all;
      When frost entrapped her,
      They came and lapped her
      In leaves, and wrapped her
            With shroud and pall;
      In red leaves wound her,
      With dead leaves bound her
      Dead brows, and round her
            A death-knell rang;
      Rang the death-bell for her,
      Sang, "is it well for her,
Well, is it well with you, rose?" they sang.

O what and where is
      The rose now, fairies,
      So shrill the air is,
            So wild the sky?
      Poor last of roses,
      Her worst of woes is
      The noise she knows is
            The winter's cry;
      His hunting hollo
      Has scared the swallow;
      Fain would she follow
            And fain would fly:
      But wind unsettles
      Her poor last petals;
Had she but wings, and she would not die.

Come, as you love her,
      Come close and cover
      Her white face over,
            And forth again
      Ere sunset glances
      On foam that dances,
      Through lowering lances
            Of bright white rain;
      And make your playtime
      Of winter's daytime,
      As if the Maytime
            Were here to sing;
      As if the snowballs
      Were soft like blowballs,
Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.

Each reed that grows in
      Our stream is frozen,
      The fields it flows in
            Are hard and black;
      The water-fairy
      Waits wise and wary
      Till time shall vary
            And thaws come back.
      "O sister, water,"
      The wind besought her,
      "O twin-born daughter
            Of spring with me,
      Stay with me, play with me,
      Take the warm way with me,
Straight for the summer and oversea."

But winds will vary,
      And wise and wary
      The patient fairy
            Of water waits;
      All shrunk and wize