Poetry Friday: Thomas Bailey Aldrich

For all of us who find inspiration difficult to come by in the dark days, a word of sympathy and encouragement from New Hampshire's own Thomas Bailey Aldrich. I also love his evocative depiction of the season:

No Songs in Winter

The sky is gray as gray may be,

There is no bird upon the bough,

There is no life on vine or tree.

In the Neponset marshes now

Willow-stems, rosy in the wind,

Shiver with hidden sense of snow.

So too 't is winter in my mind,

No light-winged fancy comes and stays:

A season churlish and unkind.

Slow creep the hour, slow creep the days,

The black ink crusts upon the pen --

Wait till the bluebirds and the jays

And golden orioles come again!