Winter
Overview
In Winter, Edwin Morgan writes about death and the relentless passing of
time. Winter borrows words and ideas from Tennyson’s poem Tithonus. In
Tithonus, the title character, a Trojan, is granted immortality but does not ask
for eternal youth. As a consequence, he is doomed to age and wither, but
never die. Tithonus laments that Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn, keeps him in
her home in the east (from which she rises every morning). In this poem,
Morgan depicts a frozen pond, near his home in the West End of Glasgow,
that becomes a symbol of death.
Form and structure
In this poem, the speaker uses the past tense to reflect on time and mortality.
Although there is only one stanza, a natural break occurs between lines ten
and eleven. In the first ten lines, the speaker establishes the setting and
melancholic mood of the poem. He considers the passing of the seasons on
the pond and, through his word choice and imagery, reveals death as the
central concern of the poem. In the latter section of the poem, he focuses on
one particularly vivid memory to reflect on the paradox that although death is
a certainty, it remains an enigma which even poets’ imaginations cannot
decipher. The word choice and imagery are powerful and create a bleak
sombre mood, while repetition and enjambment emphasise the inexorable
and cyclical nature of the passing of time.
Lines 1 - 10
People skating on a frozen pond in Scotland
In the first three lines, the speaker describes the effects of the passage of
time, in particular, the changes brought by winter. He describes a pond that,
when frozen over, provides the opportunity for ice-skating. The speaker goes
onto describe how, during winter, vibrancy and colour appear to be drained
from the scene as white dominates.
Deterioration and death are two prominent ideas in the opening line of the
poem. The speaker tells us that the woods decay and summer dies. Both
these words contribute to an idea of ageing and, eventually, passing away.
Decay suggests that, over time, things become less vibrant and this is an idea
that is central to Tennyson’s Tithonus in which the main character himself
fades over time.
The metaphor used to describe the swan as a ghost links with this idea of life
ebbing away. A poet might choose to describe a swan as a beautiful creature
that represents purity but, in this case, the imagery is dark and pessimistic.
The swan becomes a shade, haunting the pond, and helps to establish the
sense of melancholy that permeates the poem.
The speaker makes the unusual choice of the adjective heavy to describe the
light. While we would not naturally associate light with weight, this creates a
vivid impression of the winter sunlight that illuminates but provides little
warmth and is almost oppressive. This faint light fits with the idea of life fading
away. Despite the bleak mood, a single moment of optimism emerges in the
speaker’s assertion that although the light contains no obvious hint of dearest
blue, nevertheless, poets would find it. The implication is that even in the
darkest, coldest of days, the memory and promise of summer can still be
recalled if we allow our consciousness to find it.
Lines 11 - 17
The contrast between the vitality and energy of summer and the cold stillness
of winter is captured through a description of colour. We are told that the
water, frozen as ice, appears opaque and is swan-white and crystal. This
absence of colour gives an impression of a scene that is drained of life.
Children skating on a frozen pond
While the ice-skaters provided a moment of lively animation, they too are
soon gone. The repetition of the word fades punctuates the tailing-off of the
sounds of activity. We get the impression of things gradually breaking down
and disappearing, and the repetition emphasises the leeching of life from the
scene. As the skaters leave, and the sounds of their movements and vitality
disappear, the speaker captures the stillness of the scene.
This idea that, over time, all things deteriorate is also communicated through
word choice. We hear that the woods fall, decay and break. Each word
suggests that it is the natural order for things to gradually weaken and fail. We
get an impression of the trees losing their strength, dropping to the ground
and rotting away. The speaker seems to avoid providing an optimistic,
pleasant interpretation of the scene. Just as death is inescapable and
inevitable, so too words and images associated with death dominate the
poem.
As the sounds fade, so the winter light becomes dim and darkness creeps in.
Morgan employs personification as the shouts of the skaters run off into the
darkness and disappear. Here the blackness becomes the end of the spirit of
life, swallowing all sense of lively energy. The shouts, testament to the
vibrancy of the scene, seem to accept the inevitability of an end to all things.
In the final sentence of the poem, word choice is used effectively to convey
the ravages of time and the inevitability of death. The motion of fog becomes
a monstrous movement, something malevolent and frightening. Once again, a
reading of Tennyson’s poem allows us a greater appreciation of this idea - in
Tithonus, the main character becomes a grey shadow. The fog, in Morgan’s
poem, causes the light to fade and die. It represents the passing of time.
Lines 18 - 23
The stark simplicity of the dual carriageway brings a particularly
unsentimental, matter-of-fact quality to the ideas of the poem. The direction of
the fog, west, links with the notion of a conclusion to life. Just as dawn and the
beginning of a new day is announced with the sun emerging from the east,
the end of the day is marked by it slipping down in the west. This linear
journey of the fog, then, represents the inexorable march of time towards
death. In Tithonus, Aurora’s day begins in the east and, as time moves on,
she moves west. In Winter, the road is symbolic of the journey of life.
The poem’s final image, of the grey dead pane/of ice that sees nothing and
that nothing sees is poignant. The ice could be the frozen pond which, in
darkness, is still and empty as the skaters no longer race across its surface.
The ice then represents the barrier, a kind of tangible membrane that
separates the living and the dead. Death is likened to a perpetual state of
frozen animation devoid of any consciousness.
Towards the end of the poem the setting moves away from the pond to the
comparative warmth and security of the speaker’s home, where he continues
his mediation on death. However, he is unsuccessful confessing that, even in
my room/and on my paper I do not know/about the grey dead pane/of ice.
Morgan was skilled at presenting life in poetic terms. Death, however, is
something no poet, no matter how eloquent, can describe– all words are mere
speculation. The repetition of nothing emphasises the fundamental, cold
reality of death- everything ends.
Themes
The main themes of the poem are the passage of time and death. Through
the description of the progress of a day, Morgan’s speaker shows how vitality
fades and, as a conclusion, disappears completely. Though the language he
employs is engaging, the dark nature of this message sticks in the reader’s
mind. Tennyson’s poem was a tale of suffering and lamentation and with such
close links to his work, Morgan’s poem possesses a similarly despairing,
bleak and nihilistic quality. As time passes, a person becomes more aware of
his or her distance from youthful promise and possibility.
What we also understand is the speaker’s recognition of the inevitability of
death. The metaphor of the pond as life is particularly effective as we see that,
with the passing seasons, all things change and are part of a natural process.
If spring represents fertility and vitality, winter comes as the natural conclusion
to the cycle. Though Morgan’s language provides an eloquent examination of
a dark idea, his skill also leaves a haunting image in the reader’s mind.