Winter's Midnight, the Cold's Deepest Plunge

At the winter's midnight
we went to the trees, the coarse
holly, the basalm and
the hemlock for their green

At the thick of the dark
the moment of the cold's
deepest plunge we brought branches
cut from the green trees

to fill our need, and over
doorways, about paper Christmas
bells covered with tinfoil
and fastened by red ribbons

we stuck the green prongs
in the windows hung
woven wreaths and above pictures
the living green. On the

mantle we built a green forest
and among those hemlock
sprays put a herd of small
white deer as if they

were walking there. All this!
and it seemed gentle and good
to us. Their time past,
relief! The room bare. We

stuffed the dead grate
with them upon the half burnt out
log's smoldering eye, opening
red and closing under them

and we stood there looking down.
Green is a solace
a promise of peace, a fort
against the cold (though we

did not say so) a challenge
above the snow's
hard shell. Green (we might
have said) that, where

small birds hide and dodge
and lift their plaintive
rallying cries, blocks for them
and knocks down

the unseeing bullets of
the storm. Green spruce boughs
pulled down by a weight of
snow--Transformed!

William Carlos Williams, from "Burning the Christmas Greens," 1944

The Incomprehensible Powers of Winter

They carried the fir tree out in the garden and planted it firmly in the snow. Then they started to decorate it all over with the most beautiful things they could think up.

They adorned it with the big shells from the summertime flower-beds, and with the Snork Maiden's shell necklace. They took the prisms from the drawing-room chandelier and hung them from the branches, and at the very top they pinned a red silk rose that Moominpappa had once upon a time given Moominmamma as a present.

Everybody brought the most beautiful thing he had to placate the incomprehensible powers of winter.

Tove Jansson, from Tales From Moominvalley, 1962
Translated by Thomas Warburton

The Eiderdown Was Blue

The eiderdown was blue. Moominmamma had collected the down for six years and now the eiderdown lay in the guest room facing south inside its cover of crocheted lace waiting for someone to be comfortable. Mymble decided to have a hot-water bottle at her feet, she knew where they were kept in this house. She would wash her hair in rainwater every fifth day. She would take a little nap at dusk. In the evening the kitchen would be warm from the cooking.

You can lie on a bridge and watch the water flowing past. Or run, wade through a swamp in your red boots. Or roll yourself up and listen to the rain falling on the roof. It's very easy to enjoy yourself.

Tove Jansson, from Moominvalley in November, 1971
Translated by Kingsley Hart

In Which We Hide

The most important part of a tent is the stars.

Peppermints, Hives

"Look what I have for you," Mr. Poe said, grinning from ear to ear and holding out a small paper bag. "Peppermints!" Mr. Poe was a banker who had been placed in charge of handling the affairs of the Baudelaire orphans after their parents died. Mr. Poe was kindhearted, but it is not enough in this world to be kindhearted, particularly if you are responsible for keeping children out of danger. Mr. Poe had known the three children since they were born, and could never remember that they were allergic to peppermints.

Lemony Snicket, from The Wide Window, 2000

Pencil Boxes, Peppermint Creams

Next morning Aunt Edith went off by the eight-thirty train. The children's school satchels were filled, not with books, but with buns; instead of exercise-books there were sandwiches; and in the place of inky pencil-boxes were two magnificent boxes of peppermint creams which had cost a whole shilling each, and had been recklessly bought by Aunt Edith in the agitation of the parting hour when they saw her off at the station.

E. Nesbit, from The House of Arden, 1908

Red-Streaked, Small Sweet Yellow

The others waited in the shadows of a deep-banked lane, and he came back, quite soon, though long after they had begun to say what a long time he had been gone. He brought some Barcelona nuts, red-streaked apples, small sweet yellow pears, pale pasty gingerbread, a whole quarter of a pound of peppermint bullseyes, and two bottles of ginger-beer.

E. Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle, 1907

(Those Nesbit children picnic like mad.)

A Ruinous Thirst

"Have you any sarsaparilla in your store?" asked Stuart. "I've got a ruinous thirst."

"Certainly," said the storekeeper. "Gallons of it. Sarsaparilla, root beer, birch beer, ginger ale, Moxie, lemon soda, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Dipsi Cola, Pipsi Cola, Popsi Cola, and raspberry cream tonic. Anything you want."

"Let me have a bottle of sarsaparilla, please," said Stuart, "and a paper cup."

E.B. White, from Stuart Little, 1945

A Small Glass of Ginger Ale

Franny suddently put out her cigarette in the tiny ashtray--with some awkwardness, not having her second hand free to brace the ashtray. "You know what else he said to me?" she said. "You know what he swore up and down to me? He told me last night he once had a glass of ginger ale with Jesus in the kitchen when he was eight years old. Are you listening?"

"I'm listening, I'm listening...sweetheart."

"He said he was--this is exactly what he said--he said he was sitting at the table in the kitchen, all by himself, drinking a glass of ginger ale and eating saltines and reading "Dombey and Son," and all of a sudden Jesus sat down in the other chair and asked if he could have a small glass of ginger ale. A small glass, mind you--that's exactly what he said."

J.D. Salinger, from Zooey, 1957

The Little Thick Glass

And then in a stricken silence they all remembered that the basket with the dinner had been left at the entrance of the cave. Their thoughts dwelt fondly on the slices of cold mutton, the six tomatoes, the bread and butter, the screwed-up paper of salt, the apple turnovers, and the little thick glass that one drank the ginger-beer out of.

E. Nesbit, from The Enchanted Castle, 1907

The World Is Open, The Store Is Closed

On the last August evening of the final summer of my twenties, I sat in Prospect Park and waited for the bats. A man played the banjo and whistled and sang as men do in parks in Brooklyn in evenings toward the end of August. "The world is open," he sang. "The store is closed." The hard green acorns already scattered beneath the trees. All the ladies wore kerchiefs. Girls soccer had begun.

The bats arrived much later than they normally do--those Northeastern bats, all pointed behinds and cartoon wings. Mosquitoes sucked at my toes and ankles and wrists. I twisted the thick, late grass between my fingers, ate an apple or didn't. For reasons passing my understanding, I was ill at ease. I stood up, dusted myself off, and walked home.

Danger, A Nice Picnic

Moominmamma stared at the black pool with a look of extreme disapproval on her face.

"I think," she said, "that this is the right moment for us all to go on a nice picnic."

And she went straight back to the lighthouse and started to pack.

When she had got everything together that they would need for a picnic, she opened the window and started to bang the gong. She watched them all running toward the lighthouse, and did not feel the slightest bit guilty, although she knew that the gong was supposed to be used only in cases of extreme urgency. [...]

"Keep quite calm!" she cried. "There's no fire! We're going on a picnic as soon as we possibly can."

"A picnic?" exclaimed Moominpappa. "How could you bang the gong just for a picnic?"

"There's danger in the air," Moominmamma shouted back. "If we don't go for a picnic this very instant, anything might happen to us!

Tove Jansson (words and illustration), from Moominpappa at Sea, 1965
Translated by Kingsley Hart

The Month for Taking Great Care

One afternoon at the end of August, Moominpappa was walking about in his garden feeling at a loss. He had no idea what to do with himself, because it seemed everything there was to be done had already been done or was being done by somebody else.

Moominpappa aimlessly pottered about in his garden, his tail dragging along the ground behind him in a melancholy way. Here, down in the valley, the heat was scorching; everything was still and silent, and not a little dusty. It was the month when there could be great forest fires, the month for taking great care.

Tove Jansson (words and illustration), from Moominpappa at Sea, 1965
Translated by Kingsley Hart

So Dangerous, So Sublime

If ever she went back to England, she could now say to people, "I have been in an Earthquake."

With that certainty, her soused excitement began to revive. For there was nothing, no adventure from the hands of God or Man, to equal it. Realize that if she had suddenly found she could fly it would not have seemed more miraculous to her. Heaven had played its last, most terrible card; and small Emily had survived, where even grown men (such as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram) had succumbed.

Life seemed suddenly a little empty: for never again could there happen to her anything so dangerous, so sublime.

Richard Hughes, from A High Wind in Jamaica, 1929

Louder and Louder Every Moment

There was a glare of lightning and a crash of thunder all in one, and after that for a long time the thunder and lightning came so close one after the other that no one knew which flash belonged to which clap of thunder. The camp was full of light and the rolling, crashing thunder overhead made things seem hurried, as if there was something that ought to be done but no time in which to do it. The lanterns were lit but, though they were bright in the short moments of darkness, they seemed to give no light at all in the glare of the lightning flashes. 

It was dark again and suddenly quiet. It was as if the storm were holding its breath. Then there was a deep, rushing noise, far away, louder and louder every moment.

Arthur Ransome, from Swallows and Amazons, 1930

A Dark and Stormy Night

Madeleine L'Engle, from A Wrinkle in Time, 1962