On a Cold and Frosty Morning
Today winter returned, and I took some photographs of it. Here's a poem I remember from my teaching days and even though I had to read and discuss it with numerous classes of disinterested teenagers, I still like it: it's called Hard Frost and it's by Andrew Young.
Frost called to water Halt,
And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt;
Brooks, their own bridges, stop,
And icicles in long stalactites drop.
And tench in water-holes
Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls.
In the hard-rutted lane
At every footstep breaks a brittle pane,
And tinkling trees ice-bound,
Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground;
Dead boughs take root in ponds
And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds.
But vainly the fierce frost
Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host,
Hangs daggers from house-eaves
And on the windows ferny ambush weaves;
In the long war grown warmer
The sun will strike him dead and strip his armour.
---------------------------------
Here are some of my frosty photos from this morning:
Plum tree:
Plant pot:
Leaves:
The trees across the road from our house:
But - as in the poem - by lunchtime, Jack Frost had gone completely.
Frost called to water Halt,
And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt;
Brooks, their own bridges, stop,
And icicles in long stalactites drop.
And tench in water-holes
Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls.
In the hard-rutted lane
At every footstep breaks a brittle pane,
And tinkling trees ice-bound,
Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground;
Dead boughs take root in ponds
And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds.
But vainly the fierce frost
Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host,
Hangs daggers from house-eaves
And on the windows ferny ambush weaves;
In the long war grown warmer
The sun will strike him dead and strip his armour.
---------------------------------
Here are some of my frosty photos from this morning:
Plum tree:
Plant pot:
Leaves:
The trees across the road from our house:
But - as in the poem - by lunchtime, Jack Frost had gone completely.
posted by Daphne at 5:52 pm
3 Comments:
Wow that was a harsh frost! We had it bad yesterday morning, not so today, but we did have very dense fog (which I quite like) when I left home at 8am heading to work.
'allo 'allo. I shall say theese only vonce. Vot is dis frost of which you speek ?
Seriously though, lovely photo of the early sun on those frosty trees. You may have the singing voice of a strangled feline but you have the true eye of an artist, young daffers.
Or is it a discarded ear ? Anyway, I especially like how you captured the tail end of the Shuttle as it flew low over Gledhow on it's way to it's landing site just up the road from here this morning.
Brilliant.
Siegfried - yes, we had the fog yesterday too - it was rather spectacular.
Ian - yes, yes, I know, it's HOT where you are, how kind of you to remind us. But I'm glad you liked the photo. If it wasn't the Shuttle I don't know what it was - I had to take the photo very fast before the frost went and the whole of North Leeds saw me out in my dressing-gown!
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