The Winter It Is Past
written in 1788
The Winter It Is Past - meaning Summary
Love and Seasonal Contrast
This short lyric uses the change of seasons as a frame for a speaker’s sorrow over a parted lover. Spring and summer scenes of birds and roses contrast with the narrator’s persistent sadness, emphasizing separation rather than renewal. The beloved is compared to an inconstant moon while the speaker’s own feeling is likened to the steady sun, highlighting mismatch and instability in the relationship. The poem generalizes this private grief into a sympathetic address to others in love, presenting longing as a common, incurable human pain.
Read Complete AnalysesThe winter it is past, and the summer comes at last And the small birds sing on ev'ry tree; The hearts of these are glad, but mine is very sad, For my love is parted from me. The rose upon the brier by the waters running clear May have charms for the linnet or the bee: Their little loves are blest, and their little hearts at rest, But my lover is parted from me My love in like the sun in the firmament does run - Forever is constant and true; But his is like the moon, that wanders up and down, And every month it is new. All you that are in love, and cannot it remove, I pity the pains you endure, For experience makes me know that your hearts are full of woe, A woe that no mortal can cure.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.