Курсовая работа: An Evergreen topic in British classical literature, children’s poems and everyday speech: patterns of climate in the British isles

For it is a pleasant day!

* * *

Summer’s here!

Days are long, and the sun

Is high and strong.

Long live, summer!

Golden-bright,

Full of warmth

And sweet delight!

In autumn and winter fog is most frequent, particularly over the low-lying parts of the Midlands, where cold air gathers in hollows, and in the polluted parts of cities. Fogs are densest when skies are clear and winds light, they are therefore less common in coastal regions and in the Highlands, where autumn and winter winds are strong. There are melancholy notes in the descriptions of autumn and winter months: “No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, no comfortable feel in any member – no shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, no fruits, no flowers, no leaves, and no birds – November!” (Thomas Hood);

In one of his letters Rudyard Kipling writes: “Never again will I spend another winter in this accursed bucket shop of a refrigerator called England”.

George Gordon Byron sarcastically remarks in “Don Juan”: “In England winter – ending in July, to recommence in August”.

Such attitudes to winter may be found in many poetical works: “Fear no more the heat o’the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages” (William Shakespeare);

“O wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?” (Percy Bysshe Shelley);

Children’s poems about autumn are rather sad:

Flowers are happy in summer

In autumn they die and are blown away

Dry and withered,

Their petals dance in the wind

Like little brown butterflies”

(L. Hughes)

* * *

“Come, little leaves”, said the wind one day.

“Come over the meadows with me and play

Put on your dresses of red and gold,

For summer is gone and days are cold”.

* * *

This is the season when days are cool,

When we eat apples and go to school.