Summer | Winter is cold-hearted

by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

Winter is cold‑hearted

Language: English

Winter is cold-hearted,
  Spring is yea and nay,
Autumn is a weathercock
  Blown every way:
Summer days for me
  When every leaf is on its tree;

When Robin's not a beggar,
  And Jenny Wren's a bride,
And larks hang singing, singing, singing,
  Over the wheat-fields wide,
  And anchored lilies ride,
And the pendulum spider
  Swings from side to side,

And blue-black beetles transact business,
  And gnats fly in a host,
And furry caterpillars hasten
  That no time be lost,
And moths grow fat and thrive,
And ladybirds arrive.

Before green apples blush,
  Before green nuts embrown,
Why, one day in the country
  Is worth a month in town;
  Is worth a day and a year
Of the dusty, musty, lag-last fashion
  That days drone elsewhere.

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Text Authorship:

by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 - 1894), "Summer", appears in The Prince's Progress and other Poems, first published 1866 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Laurence Hector Davies , "Summer days for me", published 1962 [ children's chorus in unison and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Ernest Bristow Farrar (1885 - 1918), "Summer", published 1927 [ women's chorus or boys' chorus and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Hermann Frederic Löhr (1872 - 1943), "Summer", published 1925 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Martin Edward Fallas Shaw (1875 - 1958), "Summer", published 1917 [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Paul Sturman , "Summer", published 1974 [ unison chorus and piano ], from Seasons [sung text not yet checked]
by Mabel Nightingale Woodward (1876 - 1911), "Summer", published 1912 [ voice and piano ], from Songs, no. 17, Birmingham : Press of the Birmingham Printers [sung text not yet checked]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-01-13
Line count: 26
Word count: 125