Winter Awakens My Care

Winter Awakens My Care

anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300

loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care

as leafless trees grow bare.

For now my sighs are fraught

whenever it enters my thought:

regarding this world's joy,

how everything comes to naught.

[MS. Harl. 2253. f. 49r]

Original Middle English text:

Wynter wakeneth al my care,

Nou this leves waxeth bare.

Ofte y sike ant mourne sare

When hit cometh in my thoht

Of this worldes joie, hou hit goth al to noht.

“This World’s Joy” or “Wynter wakeneth al my care” is one of the earliest surviving winter poems in English literature and an early rhyming poem as well.  Edward Bliss Reed dated the poem to around 1310, around 30 years before the birth of Geoffrey Chaucer, and said it was thought to have been composed in Leominster, Herefordshire. I elected to translate the first stanza as a poem in its own right. Keywords/Tags: Middle English, translation, anonymous, rhyme, rhyming, medieval, lament, lamentation, complaint, care, cares, sighs, winter, weather, trees, leafless, bare, barren, barrenness, emptiness, isolation, alienation, sorrow, angst, joy, joys

Update of "A Litany in Time of Plague"

by Michael R. Burch

THE PLAGUE has come again

To darken lives of men

and women, girls and boys;

Death proves their bodies toys

Too frail to even cry.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Tycoons, what use is wealth?

You cannot buy good health!

Physicians cannot heal

Themselves, to Death must kneel.

Nuns’ prayers mount to the sky.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty’s brightest flower?

Devoured in an hour.

Kings, Queens and Presidents

Are fearful residents

Of manors boarded high.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

We have no means to save

Our children from the grave.

Though cure-alls line our shelves,

We cannot save ourselves.

"Come, come!" the sad bells cry.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

NOTE: This poem is meant to capture the understandable fear and dismay the Plague caused in the Middle Ages, and which the coronavirus has caused in the 21st century. We are better equipped to deal with this modern plague, thanks to advances in science, medicine and sanitation. We do not have to succumb to fear, but it would be wise to have a healthy respect for the nasty bug and heed the advice of medical experts.--MRB

The Beat Goes On (and On and On and On ...)
by Michael R. Burch

Bored stiff by his board-stiff attempts
at “meter,” I crossly concluded
I’d use each iamb
in lieu of a lamb,
bedtimes when I’m under-quaaluded.

Originally published by Grand Little Things