Will's "Winter"

We're smack in the middle of a winter storm here in central Indiana, although it doesn't look as if it's nearly as bad as the weather forecasters predicted. You can't tell from the photo, but it's still snowing, and I thought this scene, which I can take a look at from my dining room window by turning my head slightly to the right, was the perfect twenty-first century illustration for Shakespeare's fifteenth century poem. Although I have an uncomfortable feeling that I know who's playing the role of greasy Joan in this scene. Humph.


Winter
from Love's Labor's Lost


When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marion’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.