Given the power of weather and the natural world around us to ignite the senses, New England writers have waxed on about the weather for centuries. This ever-expanding blog page features excerpts from writings by Emily Dickinson, our own local and ever-present 19th century literary muse, as well as other New England authors and poets. At the bottom of this page, you will even find a section of quotes from non-New Englanders. (It pains us to admit it, but some of our favorite weather quotes hail from people who live or lived in other parts of the world!)
For information on Emily's actual house, writings, life and times, visit Amherst's Emily Dickinson Museum and the Emily Dickinson Collection at the Jones Library.
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| Dickinson Homestead, 8:15 am, 10/16/2012 (photo by Sharon) |
(Lived in Amherst, Massachusetts)
We have had two hurricanes within as many hours, one of which came near enough to untie my apron - but this moment the sun shines. Maggie's hens are warbling, and a man of anonymous wits is making a garden in the lane to set out slips of bluebird. The moon grows from the seed.
- Letter to the Norcross cousins, 1881
We have had two hurricanes within as many hours, one of which came near enough to untie my apron - but this moment the sun shines. Maggie's hens are warbling, and a man of anonymous wits is making a garden in the lane to set out slips of bluebird. The moon grows from the seed.
- Letter to the Norcross cousins, 1881
These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, --
A blue and gold mistake . . . .
Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,
Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!
- Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
THE SUN just touched the
morning;
The morning, happy
thing,
Supposed that he had come to dwell,
And life would be all
spring."
- Part Two: Nature V
BESIDES the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic
days
A little this side of the
snow
And that side of the haze.
- Part Two: Nature XLIX
AN AWFUL tempest mashed the
air,
The clouds were gaunt and
few;
A black, as of a spectre’s cloak,
Hid heaven and earth from
view.
The creatures chuckled on the
roofs
And whistled in the air,
And shook their fists and gnashed their teeth,
And swung their frenzied hair.
The morning lit, the birds
arose;
The monster’s faded
eyes
Turned slowly to his native
coast,
And peace was Paradise!
- Part Two: Nature XXI
BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU , 1817-1862
(Lived in Concord, Massachusetts)
It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.
- Letter to Harrison Blake (who lived in Worcester), April 10, 1853
You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.
- Letter to Harrison Blake (who lived in Worcester), April 10, 1853
You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.
- Letter to Mrs. L.C.B., March 2, 1942
Thank God men cannot as yet fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!
- Journal, 3 January 1861
- Journal, 3 January 1861
BY ARCHIBALD MACLEISH , 1892-1982
(Lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts; France; and elsewhere)
New England weather breeds New Englanders: that changing
sky is part of being born and drawing breath and dying, maybe, where you're
meant to die.
- "New England Weather" from Collected Poems: 1917-1982
- "New England Weather" from Collected Poems: 1917-1982
BY ROBERT FROST, 1874-1963
(Lived in Concord, Massachusetts; Amherst, Massachusetts; New Hampshire; and elsewhere)
Stopping By Woods on
a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
BY MARK TWAIN,
1835-1910
(Lived in Hartford, Connecticut from 1874-1891)
I reverently believe that the
Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather.
- “The Weather Speech,” delivered at the New England
Society's Seventy-First Annual Dinner, New York City, Dec. 22, 1876
There is a sumptuous variety
about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration -- and
regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly
to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see
how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other
season.
- “The Weather Speech,” delivered at the New England
Society's Seventy-First Annual Dinner, New York City, Dec. 22, 1876
It is best to read the weather
forecast before we pray for rain.
- More
Maxims of Mark, Johnson, 1927
If you don’t like the weather in
New England, just wait a few minutes.
- Yale Book of Quotations, attributed to Twain in Try and Stop Me (1944), Bennett Cerf.
Shut the door. Not that it lets
in the cold but that it lets out the cozyness.
- Mark Twain's Notebook
On Saturday, March 10, 1888 a great blizzard prevented his
wife from joining him on a trip to New York. Clemens wrote:
And so, after all my labor
and persuasion to get you to at last promise to take a week's holiday and go
off with me on a lark, this is what Providence has gone and done about it. It
does seem to me the oddest thing--the way Providence manages. A mere simple
request to you to stay at home would have been entirely sufficient; but no,
that is not big enough, picturesque enough--a blizzard's the idea; pour down
all the snow in stock, turn loose all the winds, bring a whole continent to a
stand-still: that is Providence's idea of the correct way to trump a person's
trick. If I had known it was going to make all this trouble and cost all these
millions, I never would have said anything about your going. Now in the light
of this revelation of the methods of Providence, consider Noah's flood--I wish
I knew the real reason for playing that cataclysm on the public: likely enough,
somebody who liked dry weather wanted to take a walk. That is probably the
whole thing--and nothing more to it.
- Letter to Olivia Clemens, March 10, 1888
Winter is begun here, now, I
suppose. It blew part of the hair off the dog yesterday & got the rest this
morning.
- Letter to
Chatto and Windus, October 21, 1892. Published in The Fence Painter, Winter, 2004.
BY WALLACE STEVENS, 1879-1955
(Lived in Hartford, Connecticut from 1916-1955)
It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.
It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.
- No Possum, No Sop, No Taters
BY MAURICE SENDAK, 1928-2012
(Born in Brooklyn, New York; lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut)
In January
it's so nice
while slipping
on the sliding ice
to sip hot chicken soup with rice.
Sipping once
Sipping twice.
- In January
And now for the non-New Englander section:
BY HARUKI MURAKAMI, 1949 -
BY MAURICE SENDAK, 1928-2012
(Born in Brooklyn, New York; lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut)
In January
it's so nice
while slipping
on the sliding ice
to sip hot chicken soup with rice.
Sipping once
Sipping twice.
- In January
And now for the non-New Englander section:
BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE, 1861-1941
(Lived in Kolkata, India)
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
- Verse 292, Stray Birds, 1916
- Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need, 2010
Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
- Verse 292, Stray Birds, 1916
BY GEORGE ELLIOT, 1819-1880
(Lived primarily in Coventry and London, England)
Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
- Letter to Miss Eliot, Oct. 1, 1841
Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."
- Letter to Miss Eliot, Oct. 1, 1841
BY DAVE BARRY, 1947 -
(Lives in South Florida)
It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.- Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need, 2010
BY HAROLD ALLEN RAMIS (1944 - 2014) & DANNY RUBIN (1957 - )
"When you used to tell me that you chase tornadoes, deep down I always thought it was just a metaphor."
- Twister (the movie)
Spoken by Melissa, crying in fright after a pair of tornadoes spins their truck around a few times
Harold Allen Ramis was born and raised in the Chicago area. Danny Rubin lives in New Mexico, but has spent plenty of time in New England, earning his B.A. from Brown and an M.A. in radio, television, and film from Northwestern University. He has also been (may still be) a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English at Harvard University.
You want a prediction about the weather, you're asking the wrong Phil. I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life.
- Groundhog Day (the movie)
Spoken by Phil, the TV weather forecaster and main character
BY ANNE-MARIE MARTIN (1957- ) & MICHAEL CRICHTON (1942-2008) (Michael Crichton grew up in Roslyn, New York and eventually moved to Los Angeles. Anne-Marie Martin was born in Toronto and also lived in Los Angeles. They co-authored the movie, Twister.)
You want a prediction about the weather, you're asking the wrong Phil. I'll give you a winter prediction: It's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life.
- Groundhog Day (the movie)
Spoken by Phil, the TV weather forecaster and main character
BY ANNE-MARIE MARTIN (1957- ) & MICHAEL CRICHTON (1942-2008) (Michael Crichton grew up in Roslyn, New York and eventually moved to Los Angeles. Anne-Marie Martin was born in Toronto and also lived in Los Angeles. They co-authored the movie, Twister.)
"When you used to tell me that you chase tornadoes, deep down I always thought it was just a metaphor."
- Twister (the movie)
Spoken by Melissa, crying in fright after a pair of tornadoes spins their truck around a few times
BY HARUKI MURAKAMI, 1949 -
(Lives in Japan)
"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. And you may not even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm is all about."- Kafka on the Shore, 2002
