Heart-warming Winter Poems for Kids (FREE Printable)
During winter season, the days can be dull with frosty mornings, dark skies, and bitter winter wind. When all is cold and dreary outside, reading beautiful poems can warm the heart.
I like reading poetry to my children this time of year to cheer our spirits with imaginative literature.
I have done this in various ways. Sometimes we read these poems while sipping hot cocoa after a romp in the bright snow. Or we may enjoy listening to them fireside on a snowy evening.
We have also used them as copywork during the language skills part of our school day. Reading one poem a week in Morning Time is another great choice!
Whatever your favorite winter past time, I encourage you to try reading these fun winter poems to your own children! You may be surprised by how much fun you have!
(You can print a copy of these winter poems for kids by clicking on the link below. )
Short Winter Poems for Kids
The First Sleigh Ride by Evaleen Stein
O happy time of fleecy rime
And falling flakes, and O,
The glad surprise in baby eyes
That never saw the snow!
Down shining ways the flying sleighs
Go jingling by, and see!
Beside the gate the horses wait
And neigh for you and me!
There’s Snow on the Fields by Christina Rosetti
There’s snow on the fields,
And cold in the cottage,
While I sit in the chimney nook
Supping hot pottage.
My clothes are soft and warm,
Fold upon fold,
But I’m so sorry for the poor
Out in the cold.
A Winter Night by Sara Teasdale
My window pane is starred with frost,
The wind is bitter cold tonight,
The moon is cruel and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro.
God pity all the poor tonight
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.
Winter Twilight by Anne Porter
On a clear winter’s evening
The crescent moon
And the round squirrels’ nest
In the bare oak
Are equal planets.
In the Bleak Midwinter by Christina Rosetti
In the bleak midwinter,
Frosty wind made moan.
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone.
Snow had fallen
Snow on snow on snow.
In the bleak midwinter,
Long, long ago.
Well-Known Winter Poems for Kids
Winter-Time by Robert Louis Stevenson
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.
Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.
Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.
When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.
Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.
Tiny Little Snowflakes by Lucy Larcom
Tiny little snowflakes,
In the air so high,
Are you little angels,
Floating in the sky?
Robed so white and spotless,
Flying like a dove,
Are you little creatures,
From the world above?
Whirling on the sidewalk,
Dancing in the street,
Kissing all the faces
Of the children sweet,
Loading all the housetops,
Powdering all the trees,
Cunning little snowflakes,
Little busy bees!
Approach of Winter by William Carlos Williams
The half-stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine,
like no leaf that ever was…
edge the bare garden.
Winter by Walter de la Mare
And the robin flew
Into the air, the air,
The white mist through;
And small and rare
The night-frost fell
Into the calm and misty dell.
And the dusk gathered low,
And the silver moon and stars
On the frozen snow
Drew taper bars,
Kindled winking fires
In the hooded briers.
And the sprawling Bear
Growled deep in the sky;
And Orion’s hair
Streamed sparkling by:
But the North sighed low,
“Snow, snow, more snow!”
The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Winter Night by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Pile high the hickory and the light
Log of chestnut struck by the blight.
Welcome in the winter night.
The day has gone in hewing and felling,
Sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling
For the night of talk and story-telling.
These are the hours that give the edge
To the blunted axe and the bent wedge,
Straighten the saw and lighten the sledge.
Here are question and reply,
And the fire reflected in the thinking eye.
So peace, and let the bob-cat cry.
The Snow-Bird by Frank Dempster Sherman
When all the ground with snow is white,
The merry snow-bird comes,
And hops about with great delight
To find the scattered crumbs.
How glad he seems to get to eat
A piece of cake or bread!
He wears no shoes upon his feet,
Nor hat upon his head.
But happiest is he, I know,
Because no cage with bars
Keeps him from walking on the snow
And printing it with stars.
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
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.
The Snow Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer’s sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
The Snow by Emily Dickinson
It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood.
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountain, and of plain,
Unbroken forehead from the East
Unto the East again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces –
It deals celestial vail,
To stump, and stack and stem,
A summer’s empty room,
Acres of joints, where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts
As ankles of a queen,
Then stills it’s artisans – like ghosts,
Denying they have been.
Woods In Winter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.
O’er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.
Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.
Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs
Pour out the river’s gradual tide,
Shrilly the skater’s iron rings,
And voices fill the woodland side.
Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day!
But still wild music is abroad,
Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,
Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.
As the first dust of snow falls and the sounds of the winter fill the air, this is a great time to read poetry. I hope these lovely winter poems inspire your young readers with all the beauty of the winter season!
You can print a copy of these heart-warming winter poems for kids by clicking on the link below.
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