Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday

Dorothy Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
 Illustration: Tom Duxbury

Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday 

Carol Ann Duffy



FIRST, FROST at midnight – 

Moon, Venus and Jupiter 

named in their places. 




Ice, like a cold key, 

turning its lock on the lake; 

nervous stars trapped there. 



Darkness, a hand poised 

over the chord of the hills; 

the strange word moveless. 



The landscape muted; 

soft apprehension of snow, 

a holding of breath.



Read the rest of this poem at The Guardian