In the bleak midwinter...

Photo courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net

An excerpt:

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.

~ from In The Bleak Midwinter,

written by Christina Rossetti

I love the images (cold and bleak, though they are) that Rossetti paints with her words.  This poem, written in the 1870's, was set to music about thirty years later; it became a beautiful and beloved Christmas carol.