CREATIVE REFRESHMENT
‘Winter’ by James W. Whilt
‘Starry, starry night’ — painting by Susan Alison
‘Winter’
Winter has descended o’er mountain and hill, His mantle of snow has spread; The grass and flowers are withered and brown, The leaves on the bushes are dead.
The streams all are silent in icy embrace, They are held in his bondage so strong: Not even one faint murmur is heard, Where they laughed so loud and so long.
The trees are draped in a mantle of snow, That clings to their boughs like a shroud, And the mountains cold and still and white Appear like a light fleecy cloud.
The cattle have come from their good summer range, The sheep have all entered the fold, Winter, they know, is starting its slumber, And the wind is so searching and cold.
The logs in the fire-place crackle and glow — Our cabin’s all cozy and warm, The dogs are a-sleeping, — content as can be, So why worry o’er winter’s storm.
James William Whilt, born in 1878 in Minnesota, was one of the early Cowboy Poets. He moved to Montana in 1900 and became a cowboy, living on a ranch. People liked his poems so much he was employed at the Glacier National Park to read them around campfires to tourists. He was also a caretaker, guide and trapper.
He became Montana’s poet Laureate.
He loved living in the mountains, ‘where the roads end and the trails commence, life is most real’.
“No matter what we may appear in our daily walks of life — no matter what cloak of indifference or hypocrisy may be forced on us thru associations, conventions, necessities or otherwise, here in the mountains and on the trails — the great out-of-door cathedrals where Nature reigns supreme — we realize the insignificance of man and man-made things and become just our plain selves.”
My own creativity is always refreshed by reading the creative works of others — especially some of the classic poems, knowing they were written in a different world at a different time, with a different mindset.
This poem is in the public domain. Stuff you need to know about the use of other people’s work.
Other classic poems:
Stuff you need to know about the use of other people’s work:
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