As I read Edith Holden's January entry in her Country Diary, I was delighted to see that she quotes one of my favourite poems - Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Frost at Midnight. It seems particularly appropriate to be reading this wonderful poem, as the weather for the start of January is so cold, with snow and ice.
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams!