- Elaine Feinstein «January Trees». Where shall I find the resilience of tree? I envy their courage. In the first warm rain the poplar branches swell with the hint of new buds. There are even tips of yellow. Have they have forgotten autumn, with last year’s chestnut leaves still rotten in the grass? That’s not easy to do. Let me study the endurance of my eucalyptus whose ovals shivered in the wind all winter through.
- Weldon Kees «January» Morning: blue, cold, and still. Eyes that have stared too long. Stare at the wedge of light. At the end of the frozen room. Where snow on the windowsill, Packed and cold as a life, Winters the sense of wrong. And emptiness and loss. That is my awakening. A lifetime drains away. Down a path of frost; My face in the looking-glass. That I smashed to bits one night. Turns again from the light. Toward fragments of the past. That break with the end of sleep. This wakening, this breath. No longer real, this deep. Darkness where we toss, Cover a life at the last. Sleep is too short a sleep.
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti «January». For January I give you vests of skins, And mighty fires in hall, and torches lit; Chambers and happy beds with all things fit; Smooth silken sheets, rough furry counterpanes; And sweetmeats baked; and one that deftly spins. Warm arras; and Douay cloth, and store of it; And on this merry manner still to twit. The wind, when most his mastery the wind wins. Or issuing forth at seasons in the day, Ye’ll fling soft handfuls of the fair white snow. Among the damsels standing round, in play: And when you all are tired and all aglow, Indoors again the court shall hold its sway, And the free Fellowship continue so.
- Helen Hunt Jackson «A Calendar of Sonnets: January». O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn. Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn. Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire. The streams than under ice. June could not hire. Her roses to forego the strength they learn. In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn. The bridges thou dost lay where men desire. In vain to build. O Heart, when Love’s sun goes. To northward, and the sounds of singing cease, Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace. Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose. Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows, The winter is the winter’s own release.
- Annette Wynne «I’m January». I’m January bringing you. A year of days—all brand, brand new; I step upon the frosty ground. When chimes and sleighbells ring around; You welcome me and children sing, And joy comes into everything. I bring you love and lots of cheer, And work and friends for all the year.