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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Written at Ampton, Suffolk

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Ampton

Written at Ampton, Suffolk

By Henry Alford (1810–1871)

WELCOME, stern Winter, though thy brows are bound

With no fresh flowers, and ditties none thou hast

But the wild music of the sweeping blast;

Welcome this chilly wind that snatches round

The brown leaves in quaint eddies; we have long

Panted in wearying heat; skies always bright,

And dull return of never-clouded light,

Sort not with hearts that gather food for song.

Rather, dear Winter, I would forth with thee,

Watching thee disattire the earth; and roam

On the bleak heaths that stretch about my home,

Till round the flat horizon I can see

The purple frost-belt; then to fireside-chair,

And sweetest labor of poetic care.