Winter Poem by David Mitchell

'If winter comes, can spring be far behind? '
These words are like a medicine to me,
That lift up high my all too weary mind,
Foretelling unknown joys that soon must be:
I wandered through the meadows yesterday,
The grass I trod upon was white with rime;
Cast back my thoughts to things long passed away,
And shuddered at the frowardness of time.

—This morning came; I took a book in hand,
That time and thought should not slip through my fingers
As on a beach a child picks up some sand
That straightway flees his grasp, as there he lingers:
—Then, when I read that prophecy of spring,
I found my drooping spirit at last take wing.

(Saturday,10th January,2009.)