Saturday Rave: Skating. From the Prelude by William Wordsworth

So many New Year's poems are full of darkness and gloom. It's as if the New Year is more about the death of old hopes than the birth of new ones.

But here's a winter poem - it's actually part of a very long one - which literally takes place in darkness, but is at the same time full of energy and the joy of Nature, noise, speed, and youth.

And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through the twilight gloom,
I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us - for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six, - I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for its home. All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounded horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare,
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle; with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while the far distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.

That's the thing about being a poet, you see: you really notice what you're feeling.

It's not always a blessing: but oh, what a gift it is to the rest of us!

Word To Use Today: skate. This word comes via Dutch from the French éschaisse, which means improbably, stilt.