You'll find me hiding in winter's weave,
Amongst its yarn and thread.
From the outside world having taken leave,
Safe and snug, to comfort fled.

For I love the cold, dark shortened days,
When light is but a glow.
And glancing sun so briefly stays,
Long shadows come and go.

A season spun on autumn's loom,
Its garment wistful made.
I thrive in ghostly cheerless gloom,
In its three-month-long stockade.

I see the sun appear and go,
Brief daylight full enjoyed.
By wind and rain and sleet and snow,
My sense of being is buoyed.

All nature's cloth unravelled ,
When the year must start again,
A full twelve months now travelled,
Of seasonal wax and wain.

And so I offer an earnest song,
To this season of my soul.
And land to which by birth belong,
Whose virtues I extol:

Winter do your very worst,
Undermine all summer's pleasures.
Be all its benefits harsh reversed,
Deny me all its dreamy leisures.

Lash the hilltops crags and tors,
Scoop up big waves and seas.
Drive drifts across the dales and moors,
Scant sun our spring hopes tease.

And when your yearly job is done,
From recent memory disappear.
Promise once autumn has begun,
You're on your way to end the year.