Winter Evening

Oil on Canvas

33 cm x 45.7 cm

by Edouard Cortes
1882-1969
Nationality - French

-o0o-

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, “The Year” (1910)

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of the year.

-o0o-


Frost Fair on the River Thames near the Temple stairs
1683/4
by
Thomas Wyke

-o0o-


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,
When 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 Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
When nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-whit!
Tu-who! a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

(William Shakespeare, from "Love's Labour Lost")

-o0o-

Christmas is past for another year but it's always interesting to see vintage Christmas cards from other places and times

-o=0=o-

Next post - Friday 4th January

-o=0=o-