February Poems

Table of Contents

1. The Brook in February

   by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

   
   

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   A snowy path for squirrel and fox,
   It winds between the wintry firs.
   Snow-muffled are its iron rocks,
   And o'er its stillness nothing stirs.
   

   But low, bend low a listening ear!
   Beneath the mask of moveless white
   A babbling whisper you shall hear—
   Of birds and blossoms, leaves and light.
   

2. I'm Not Just February

   by Annette Wynne

   I'm not just February
   With winds that blow
   All day, and piled-up snow;
   I'm Washington and Lincoln, too,
   Who kept our country's flag for you!
   I'm Valentine of airy grace—
   With golden hearts and hearts of lace
   And pretty cards that people send,
   Quite as a secret, to a friend.
   Though I am short of days and small,
   I'm quite a big month, after all!
   

3. Leap Year

   by Annette Wynne

   Little month of February,
   You are small, but worthy—very!
   Will you grow up like the others,
   Like your sister months and brothers?
   Every four years with a bound
   With a leap up from the ground,
   Trying to grow tall as they—
   All you stretch is one small day!
   Even then you're not so tall
   But just the shortest month of all.
   

4. February

   by Rebecca Hey

   Though Winter still asserts his right to reign,
   He sways his sceptre now with gentler hand;
   Nay, sometimes softens to a zephyr bland
   The hurrying blast, which erst along the plain
   Drove the skin-piercing sleet and pelting rain
   In headlong rage; while, ever and anon,
   He draws aside his veil of vapours dun,
   That the bright sun may smile on us again.
   To-day 'twould seem (so soft the west wind's sigh)
   That the mild spirit of the infant Spring
   Was brooding o'er the spots where hidden lie
   Such early flowers as are the first to fling
   On earth's green lap their wreaths of various dye—
   Flowers, round whose forms sweet hopes and sweeter memories cling.
   

5. The February Hush

   by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

   
   

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   Snow o'er the darkening moorlands,—
   Flakes fill the quiet air;
   Drifts in the forest hollows,
   And a soft mask everywhere.
   

   The nearest twig on the pine-tree
   Looks blue through the whitening sky,
   And the clinging beech-leaves rustle
   Though never a wind goes by.
   

   But there's red on the wildrose berries,
   And red in the lovely glow
   On the cheeks of the child beside me,
   That once were pale, like snow.
   

6. February Gems

   by Allen R. Darrow

   To wandering children in the ages old,
   I've often heard that mystic tales were told
   Of fairy lands, where oft on trees and bowers
   There fell from heaven pure crystal gems in showers.
   Well, I believe, and so I think must you
   That myths are shadows sometimes of the true;
   For going forth upon a winter morn
   A wondrous glory did the day adorn,
   On every tree along the city street,
   What matchless splendor did my vision greet.
   Pendant from silver-coated branch and stem,
   In argent beauty hung a brilliant gem;
   Sparkling in candescent glory bright,
   Shone myriad diamonds in the morning light.
   Nature from its exhaustless wealth and store,
   Through every street and by-way o'er and o'er,
   Prodigal alike to all the rich and poor
   Had scattered rivals to the Khoinoor.
   

7. February

   by James Berry Bensel

   
   

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   Around, above the world of snow
   The light-heeled breezes breathe and blow;
   Now here, now there, they whirl the flakes,
   And whistle through the sun-dried brakes,
   Then, growing faint, in silence fall
   Against the keyhole in the hall.
   

   Then dusky twilight spreads around,
   The last soft snowflake seeks the ground,
   And through unshaded window-panes
   The lamp-rays strike across the plains,
   While now and then a shadow tall
   Is thrown upon the white washed wall.
   

   The hoar-frost crackles on the trees,
   The rattling brook begins to freeze,
   The well-sweep glistens in the light
   As if with dust of diamonds bright;
   And speeding o'er the crusted snow
   A few swift-footed rabbits go.
   

   Then the night-silence, long and deep,
   When weary eyes close fast in sleep;
   The hush of Nature's breath, until
   The cock crows loud upon the hill;
   And shortly through the eastern haze
   The red sun sets the sky ablaze.
   

8. February

   by Jane [Goodwin] Austin

   
   

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   I thought the world was cold in death;
   The flowers, the birds, all life was gone,
   For January's bitter breath
   Had slain the bloom and hushed the song.
   

   And still the earth is cold and white,
   And mead and forest yet are bare;
   But there's a something in the light
   That says the germ of life is there.
   

   Deep down within the frozen brook
   I hear a murmur, faint and sweet,
   And lo! the ice breaks as I look,
   And living waters touch my feet.
   

   Within the forest's leafless shade
   I hear a spring-bird's hopeful lay:
   O life to frozen death betrayed
   Thy death shall end in life to-day.
   

   And in my still heart's frozen cell
   The pulses struggle to be free;
   While sweet the bird sings, who can tell
   But life may bloom again for thee!
   

9. The Thrush in February

   by George Meredith

   
   

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   I know him, February's thrush,
   And loud at eve he valentines
   On sprays that paw the naked bush
   Where soon will sprout the thorns and bines.
   

   Now ere the foreign singer thrills
   Our vale his plain-song pipe he pours,
   A herald of his million bills;
   And heed him not, the loss is yours.
   

   My study, flanked with ivied fir
   And budded beech with dry leaves curled,
   Perched over yew and juniper,
   He neighbors, piping to his world:
   

   The wooded pathways dank on brown,
   The branches on grey cloud a web,
   The long green roller of the down
   An image of the deluge-ebb:
   

   And farther, they may hear along
   The stream beneath the poplar row,
   By fits, like welling rocks, the song
   Spouts of a blushful Spring in flow.
   

   But most he loves to front the vale
   When waves of warm southwestern rains
   Have left our heavens clear in pale,
   With faintest beck of moist red veins:
   

   Vermilion wings, by distance held
   To pause aflight while fleeting swift:
   And high aloft the pearl inshelled
   Her lucid glow in glow will lift:
   

   A little south of colored sky;
   Directing, gravely amorous,
   The human of a tender eye
   Through pure celestial on us.
   

   Remote, not alien; still, not cold;
   Unraying yet, more pearl than star;
   She seems awhile the vale to hold
   In trance, and homelier makes the far.
   

   The Earth her sweet unscented breathes;
   An orb of lustre quits the height;
   And like broad iris-flags, in wreaths
   The sky takes darkness, long ere quite.
   

   His Island voice then shall you hear,
   Nor ever after separate
   From such a twilight of the year
   Advancing to the vernal gate.
   

   He sings me, out of winter's throat,
   The young time with the life ahead;
   And my young time his leaping note
   Recalls to spirit-mirth from dead.
   

   * * * * * * * *
   

   Full lasting is the song, though he,
   The singer, passes: lasting too,
   For souls not lent in usury,
   The rapture of the forward view.
   

   With that I bear my senses fraught
   Till what I am fast shoreward drives.
   They are the vessel of my Thought.
   The vessel splits, the Thought survives.
   

   Nought else are we when sailing brave
   Save husks to raise and bid it burn.
   Glimpse of its livingness will wave
   A light the senses can discern
   

   Across the river of the death
   Their close. Meanwhile, O twilight bird
   Of promise! bird of happy breath!
   I hear, I would the City heard.
   

10. February Rain

    by Charles Turner Dazey

    
    

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    O lonely day! No sounds are heard
    Save winds and floods that downward pour,
    And timid fluting of a bird,
    That pipes one low note o'er and o'er.
    

    Before the blast the bare trees lean,
    The ragged clouds sail low and gray,
    And all the wild and wintry scene
    Is but one blur of driving spray.
    

    O day most meet for memories,
    For musing by a vacant hearth
    On that which was and that which is,
    And those who walk no more on earth!
    

    And yet this dark and dreary day
    Some brighter lesson still can bring,
    For it is herald of the May,
    A faint foretoken of the spring.
    

    Beneath the ceaseless-beating rain
    Earth's snowy shroud fast disappears,
    As sorrow pressing on the brain,
    Fades in a flood of happy tears.
    

    And thus in darkness oft is wrought,
    Through lonely days of tears and grief,
    The gradual change by which is brought
    To shadowed lives some sweet relief.
    

11. February

    by Edwin Arnold

    
    

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    Rain—hail—sleet—snow—But in my East
    This is the time when palm-trees quicken
    With flowers, wherefrom the Arabs' feast
    Of amber dates will thenceforth thicken.
    

    Female and male apart they grow;
    And o'er the desert sands is wafted,
    On light airs of the After-glow,
    That golden dust whence fruit is grafted.
    

    No gray reality's alloy
    Your green ideal can diminish!
    You have love's kiss, in all its joy,
    Without love's lips, which let us finish!
    

12. Afternoon in February

    by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    
    

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    The day is ending,
    The night is descending;
    The marsh is frozen,
    The river dead.
    

    Through clouds like ashes
    The red sun flashes
    On village windows
    That glimmer red.
    

    The snow recommences;
    The buried fences
    Mark no longer
    The road o'er the plain;
    

    While through the meadows,
    Like fearful shadows,
    Slowly passes
    A funeral train.
    

    The bell is pealing,
    And every feeling
    Within me responds
    To the dismal knell;
    

    Shadows are trailing,
    My heart is bewailing
    And tolling within
    Like a funeral bell.
    

13. In February

    by John Addington Symonds

    
    

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    The birds have been singing to-day
    And saying: "The spring is near!
    The sun is as warm as in May,
    And the deep blue heavens are clear."
    

    The little bird on the boughs
    Of the sombre snow-laden pine
    Thinks: "Where shall I build me my house,
    And how shall I make it fine?
    

    "For the season of snow is past;
    The mild south wind is on high;
    And the scent of the spring is cast
    From his wing as he hurries by."
    

    The little birds twitter and cheep
    To their loves on the leafless larch:
    But seven foot deep the snow-wreaths sleep,
    And the year hath not worn to March.
    

14. February

    by Helen Maria [Fiske] [Hunt] Jackson

    Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
    And reigns the winter's pregnant silence, still:
    No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
    And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
    These are the days when ancients held a rite
    Of expiation for the old year's ill,
    And prayer to purify the new year's will:
    Fit days,—ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,
    Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste
    And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed
    The ardent summer's joy to have and taste:
    Fit days—to take to last year's losses heed,
    To reckon clear the new life's sterner need;
    Fit days—for Feast of Expiation placed!
    

15. February

    by George Walter Thornbury

    
    

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    The time when skies are free from cloud,
    Though still the robin whistles loud
    In the bare garden croft,
    The catkin, on the hazel tree,
    Mistakes for summer flower the bee,
    And round it hovers oft.
    

    Winter's last sigh, from frozen north,
    Withers the flower that ventures forth;
    And there is wanting still
    The unseen warmth, the mellow note
    Of the wild bird with dappled coat,
    Though faster flows the rill.
    

    When, from his winter home, the snake
    Creeps stealthy through the withered brake,
    And thoughtless of the past,
    The young leaves open overhead,
    Though still their fathers, sere and dead,
    Are hurried by the blast.
    

16. February Days

    by Ellwood Roberts

    
    

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    The icy northern blast sweeps by,
    From wild wastes of the Arctic snow;
    Above us droops a wintry sky,
    A bleak white landscape lies below.
    But, 'neath the chilly Polar blast,
    A low, sweet undertone I hear:
    "The wintry storms will soon be past,
    And pleasant Spring-time days are near."
    

    In Winter's stern and icy grasp,
    Are river, pond, and rill, to-day;
    Like iron bonds his fetters' clasp,
    Like despot's rule his frosty sway.
    But only yesterday I heard—
    Though all the landscape was so drear—
    The sweet voice of a lonesome bird:
    "The Spring-time days will soon be here."
    

    The air is icy, keen and chill,
    All Nature lies in sleep profound,
    That seems like death—so cold, so still—
    But flowers are biding underground.
    The sun mounts up, from day to day,
    His beams each morn more full of cheer.
    And to our hearts they seem to say:
    "The Spring-time days will soon be here."
    

    The ice and snow will soon be gone,
    The Spring-time waits the sun's warm rays,
    Already we can trace the dawn
    Of brighter, warmer, sweeter days.
    Each morn we watch for signs of Spring,
    Each evening feel its coming near.
    All Nature's voices seem to sing:
    "The Spring-time days will soon be here."
    

    And though an Arctic wind sweeps by
    From wildest wastes of ice and snow,
    And though above us wintry sky,
    And desolate white fields below—
    Beneath the wind's wild organ-blast,
    A low, sweet undertone I hear:
    "The wintry storms will soon be past,
    The sunny Spring-time days are near."
    

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