Whether Candlemas be dark or clear, forty days of winter will still be here.

 

My girl Syrenka

"The season's anguish, crashing whirlwind, ice,

Have passed, and cleansed the trodden paths,

That silent gardeners have strewn with ash. 

The iron circles of the sky,

Are worn away by tempest;

Yet in this garden there is no more strife:

The Winter's knife is buried in the earth.

Pure music is the cry that tears

The birdless branches in the wind.

No blossom is reborn.  The blue

Stare of the pond is blind. 

And no one sees

A restless stranger through the morning stray

Across the sodden lawn, whose eyes

Are tired of weeping, in whose breast

A savage sun consumes its hidden day." 

-  David Gascoyne, Winter Garden