25 Poems of Christmas: December 27

I found this in a book of children's poems this evening as I helped my husband clean out the basement: Favorite Poems for Children, edited by Holly Pell McConnaughy.  I found a perfect poem for today ( at least today in the Northeast!) inside.  


Old Winter
By Thomas Noel

Old Winter sad, in snowy clad,
   Is making a doleful din;
But let him howl till he crack his jowl,
   We will not let him in.

Ay, let him lift from the billowy drift
   His hoary, haggard form,
And scowling stand, with his wrinkled hand
   Outstretching to the storm.

And let his weird and sleety beard
   Stream loose upon the blast,
And, rustling, chime to the tinkling rime
   From his bald head falling fast.

Let his baleful breath shed blight and death
   On herb and flower and tree;
And brooks and ponds in crystal bonds
   Bind fast, but what care we?

Let him push at the door—in the chimney roar,
   And rattle the window-pane;
Let him in at us spy with his icicle eye,
   But he shall not entrance gain.

Let him gnaw, forsooth, with his freezing tooth,
   On our roof-tiles, till he tire;
But we care not a whit, as we jovial sit
   Before our blazing fire.

Come, lads, let’s sing, till the rafters ring;
   Come, pass the can about;—
From our snug fire-side this Christmas-tide
   We’ll keep old Winter out.