Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Tuesday, January 11, 2020.

Today's poem is by an American poet and translator, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of the most

famous of all American poets ever. He, of course, is famous for poems like Paul Revere's Ride, the song of

Hiawatha, Evangeline, and he was also famous for being the first American to translate

Dante's Divine Comedy. The poem that I'm going to read today is called Woods and Winter,

and I read it once again, I was reminded of it, and Jane McMorland Hunter's anthology, A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year.

Jane McMorland Hunter has a series of these anthologies, which are really lovely. She has one called A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year, one called A Nature poem for every night of the year.

And she also has an anthology of great nature writing,

not just poetry, and several other poetry anthologies. So I highly recommend those volumes. And this was the poem

in this book for January 7th, but I wanted to share it here today. So this is Longfellow's

woods in winter. It goes like this.

When winter winds are piercing chill, and through the hawthorn blows the gale,

with solemn feet I tread the hill that overbrows the lonely veil.

Or the bare upland, and away through the long reach of desert woods, the embracing sunbeams chastely play and gladden these deep solitudes.

Where twisted round the barren oak, the summer vine and beauty clung, and summer winds the stillness broke, the crystal icicle is hung.

Where from their frozen urns, mute springs pour out the river's gradual tide.

Shrilly, the skater's iron rings and voices fill the woodland side.

Alas! how changed from the fair scene, when birds sang out their mellow lay, and winds were soft, and woods were green,

and the song ceased not with the day. But still, wild music is abroad, pale desert woods within your crowd,

and gathering winds in hoarse accord, amid the vocal reads,

pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds, my ear has grown familiar with your song.

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