Rubaiyat

Rubaiyat for Winter

The rising sun escapes his frozen tomb
And makes the land his light encrusted room,
In which can form a thousand thoughts of spring,
Dispelling dismal doubts of winter gloom.

The frost has left his white and ashen coat.
On every leaf his frigid tale he wrote.
Yet far from being sad I see his skill
In making every twig a thing of note.

The light comes low across the latent land
And strikes the trunks with mellow tone and band.
Within its power there still remains the strength
To change the sleeping plants to something grand.

As frost departs. A tracery remains,
For every tree a fair design retains,
The grey and overburdened pregnant sky
A fearful promise of a change contains.

And whilst the dark has reigned, the God has spread
A virgin's dress o'er patch and summer bed,
And folk from windows have their furtive peep.
The child has joy, but they are full of dread.



For snow has come, a covering for all.
The child delights in things the old appal,
For children joy in sled and snowy romp.
They do not fear the icy slip or fall.

The snowmen and the sledges that I see
Bring thoughts and happy days of youth to me
And in those thoughts a present joy, I gain
A strange nostalgic resurrected glee.


Peter M Grinham 4th January 2010

Note. ( My apologies to those who know more about this than I do)

Rubai is Persian for quatrain, that is a four lined verse. The rhyme scheme is aaba, that is lines one, two and four have the same rhyme. Each line has ten syllables with the alternate syllable stressed. ( iambic pentameter)