Winter is icumen in

I have taken an extra day off from work before the Thanksgiving holiday, and Boulder has received its first real snowfall of the season.

Winter is icumen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Ancient Music, Ezra Pound

M and I had a brief but fervent argument the other day about the author of the above poem. He said it was Robert Frost (hah!); I knew that it was Ezra Pound due to my excellent education in English literature at Indiana University hundreds of years ago. During this discussion at Heidi's Brooklyn Deli on Pearl Street, I ended up proving that I was right with a brief Internet search using my Blackberry. I am particularly proud of this small victory because M has given me no end of grief over the years for somehow earning a degree in English without ever reading Melville's Moby Dick cover to cover (which he believes to be the finest American novel ever written – global before its time, yada yada). I have tried. But I can’t seem to get past the endless chapter in which water flowing from mountain springs, down creeks and streams, into rivers, and eventually into the vastness of the ocean, is described in detail as yet unmatched in all my subsequent literary perusals.

To see the radical difference between the poets, I recommend reading Robert Frost’s wonderful poem, much preferred in tone to Ezra’s, and one I quote frequently:

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

A statue of Robert Frost sits in front of the Old Main building on the University of Colorado campus. Once, CU was doing some construction work around the statue and put up a protective fence to be sure that it would not be damaged. Very quickly a sign appeared on this cage: “Free Bob.”

M has headed out to shovel our sidewalk and buy last-minute Thanksgiving supplies at King Soopers – and I have informed him that I will be blogging about his gross literate error. This has earned me the title “Evil Bloghead.”

I am indeed looking forward to the holiday, and the snow is welcome; it gives me a cozy feeling as I sit here typing away by the window. Oddly enough, "Winter is icumen in" also has always given me a cozy feeling – something about the inevitability, and therefore comfort, of the seasons. Not what Ezra had in mind, I am guessing.