winter

By Elizabeth Prata

‘Wynter wakeneth al my care’ is one of the earliest surviving winter poems in English literature. Its language is Middle English of the 1300s.

It’s a poem about the brevity of life – a memento mori – which is a poem or trope reminding one about the inevitability of death. It is designed to remind one about that inevitability to come upon everyone, and to reflect on what happens after death.

We don’t so much reflect on these things in current days, nor do preachers preach much on it. I remember Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God which was ALL about death and our eternal destination, reaping the rewards of sin, therefore repent. Not a common subject today.

Perhaps because death is so removed from us moderns, we are not as familiar with the Grim Reaper anymore personally. The body is taken to a funeral home, sequestered in Intensive Care Units, it isn’t prevalent in every day life as it would have been for the ancients who saw death all the time. Even warfare is partly done by bombs and missiles from afar, unlike hand to hand combat in former times, killing by one’s own sword or bayonet.

Here is the original poem:

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 geth al to noht!

Nou hit is, ant nou hit nys,
Also hit ner nere, ywys!
That moni mon seith, soth hit ys:
Al goth bote Godes wille;
Alle we shule deye,
Thath us like ylle.

Al that gren me graveth grene;
Nou hit faleweth al bydene.
Jesu, help that hit be sene,
Ant shild us from helle,
For Y not whider Y shal,
Ne hou longe her duelle.

Here is the translated poem:

Winter awakens all my sorrow;
Now these leaves grow barren.
Often I sigh and sadly mourn
When it enters into my thought
Regarding this world’s joy:
How it goes all to nought!

Now it is, and now it isn’t,
As if it had never been, indeed!
What many a man says, true it is:
All passes except God’s will;
We all shall die,
Though we dislike it.

All that seed men bury unripe;
Now it withers all at once.
Jesus, help that this be known,
And shield us from hell,
For I know not whither I’ll go,
Nor how long here dwell.

“What impressed the writer was the tragic change that comes over the appearance of the woods and the meadows. The whole point of his song is that he actually sees, as did Shakespeare, hideous winter confounding the beauty of summer-stripping the branches and turning the green into the sere and yellow leaf. That sight-the death of the season-plunges him into melancholy, for he knows that life itself is as brief as summer and that for man death is as unescapable as winter.” Source, article “Wynter Wakeneth Al My Care”, by Edward Bliss Reed
Modern Language Notes, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Feb., 1928).

The Lord’s Day is a good day to reflect on death, which to the Christian is still a sad subject but one that is laced with HOPE. We know our eternal destination post bodily death is eternal life. Jesus the Savior gives life to those who repent, and we will live forever with Him! A subject that has joy behind it because of the promise of reunion, happiness, and life triumphant in glory.

After winter, comes the spring.

One of the oldest surviving poems in written form is the Middle English poem Wynter awakeneth all my care. It is thought the poem was written in about 1340, before even Chaucer wrote.

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As A Clerk of Oxford wrote on their blog,

A translation is inadequate, though; a lot of the power of the poem is in the rhymes, and the untranslatable negatives, especially ‘Nou hit is, and nou hit nys, / Also hit ner nere, ywys’. There are some clever touches, such as the phrase waxeth bare: ‘waxen’ can just mean ‘to become’, but it usually means specifically to ‘grow’ (like the moon, which waxes and wanes; do we use the word in any other context now?). But when leaves fall, waxing bare, it’s the exact opposite of growth; it’s death and depletion.

From the Library of the University of Rochester, we read,

Al that gren me graveth grene. “All that seed men bury unripe.” … “to put something under the ground, cover with earth; bury; plant.” There is no MED gloss for gren, a much-discussed crux, sometimes emended to grein, “grain, seed” (suggestive of John 12:24–25: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling to the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit”).

Regarding the world’s joy…Spring is certainly a joyous time. Shoots and leaves burst forth. Time-lapse photography on the nature channels show flowers veritably bounding from the soil. Flora’s vivid early spring colors bring smiles to all who see.

Summer simmers into a dreamy and languid time. One’s cares still crowd the thoughts, but they are less potent, their robustness competing with sunny joys and relaxing pursuits.

Fall’s surge of color and riotous leaf swarms in wild wind both delight and vex. Stooping to pick up a brightly colored leaf, craning to see the Vee-shape of birds scuttling south, glancing at rushing clouds and crystal skies, breathing the crisp air…

Sadly, these momentary flares of color and movement are soon doused in the harsh embrownment of the darkling season. Winter. No better description of the ground and sky at late fall exists, in my opinion, than Thomas Hardy’s opening scene of The Return of the Native–

A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.

The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky.

Winter’s dark death, dearth of color and lack of life…

Nou hit is, and nou hit nys, Also hit ner nere, ywys; (Now it is and not it isn’t, as if it never had been, indeed!). And yet, what a time, the bleak midwinter, to praise the Lord for all life! He has stripped away the distracting color and movement and delights of flora, and shown us His manifest care. In the bleak midwinter, one that awakeneth all my sorrow, He sustains all life, precious but hidden in His hand. “All passes but God’s will”.

How kind of Him to allow this fallow time so as to see new life resurrecting in spring, just as He came to life from the dead. The frigid season is one that entombs itself but then again bursts with life and joy and color soon enough. “It all goes to nought”, for only a season. The grace of this cyclical and everlasting flourishing is bounteous and beauteous. God is in control!

For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16-17).

The supremacy of Christ, spring, summer, fall, and winter, everlasting supremacy and everlasting life. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1:4)

Jesus, help that this be known,
And shield us from hell,
For I know not whither I’ll go,
Nor how long here dwell.

No matter. The dormant seed entombed in ice, fleeting on scudding wind, or falling unnoticed on harsh road, I am that unripe seed, not knowing how long here I dwell. But secure am I that as wynter comes, even a death, I will spring forth in joy and color and movement from the very grave that seeks to grip me fast, but never can. The springtime of the eternity in Jesus awaits.