Winter Poems: 29 Short, Rhyming and Snow Poems, Plus Classics

These winter poems are for the whole cold season, from the first frost in December to the last snow in March. Below are 29 original poems written for this page: short ones, winter haiku, rhyming ones, snow poems, poems for kids and classrooms, and cozy ones for adults. After them come classic winter poems by Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare and Wallace Stevens.

None of them is about Christmas, so they work just as well in January and February. For holiday verses, see our Christmas poems.

On this page:

• Short winter poems
• Winter haiku
• Winter poems that rhyme
• Snow poems
• Winter poems for kids and classrooms
• Winter acrostic poems and a template
• Cozy winter poems for adults
• Classic winter poems
• How to choose and use a winter poem
• FAQs

Short winter poems

These short winter poems run from two to five lines, so they fit in a card, a text or a photo caption.

1. First Frost

The frost came walking in the night
And left the grass all stiff and white.

2. January Page

January, swept and bare:
A clean page and a colder air.
Nothing to finish, nothing due,
Just one new year with room for you.

3. Snow Day Update

School is closed! The roads are white!
I'm staying in my socks all day.
Correction: Mom just said I might
Be shoveling. Oh well. Hooray?

4. A Winter Wish

Wishing you a quiet winter:
a warm kitchen, a good book,
and someone kind to shovel the walk.

5. Frost on the Window

Frost ferns on the glass.
I breathe a hole
the size of a coin
and watch the street come back.

6. March Thaw

The snowbank by the mailbox sighs
And shrinks a little every noon;
The robins check the yard like spies.
It isn't spring. But it is soon.

Winter haiku

A haiku catches one moment in three short lines, and in the Japanese tradition it carries a season word: for winter, snow, frost, the cold moon or the first winter rain. These five original winter haiku keep the English 5-7-5 syllable count, so they work as models in class. For haiku from every season, see our haiku examples.

7. Birdbath

ice on the birdbath —
a sparrow taps it, then waits
for it to open

8. Frozen Puddle

frozen puddle path —
a boy tests it with one boot,
then both, then the crack

9. Deep Snow

deep snow in the yard —
the dog leaps, sinks, and leaps on
like a small dolphin

10. Half Past Four

dark by half past four —
one by one the kitchens glow
all along the street

11. Thaw

drip from the gutter —
the snowman's coal smile slides down
one lump at a time

Two classic winter haiku. The Japanese poems are centuries old and in the public domain; the English versions are our own translations.

"First winter rain" by Matsuo Basho

初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也

hatsu shigure
saru mo komino o
hoshige nari

Our translation:

first winter rain —
even the monkey seems to want
a little straw raincoat

Basho wrote this in 1689 on the road from Ise to Iga, and it opens the 1691 anthology Sarumino ("The Monkey's Straw Raincoat"), which is named after it. Shigure, the cold showers of early winter, is the season word.

"Five feet of snow" by Kobayashi Issa

これがまあつひの栖か雪五尺

kore ga maa
tsui no sumika ka
yuki go shaku

Our translation:

so this is it —
my last home?
five feet of snow

Issa wrote this in December 1812, when he went home for good to the village of Kashiwabara, in one of the snowiest parts of Japan. A shaku is about 30 centimeters, so five come to about five feet. The poem is half a sigh and half a joke.

Write your own winter haiku, free

Winter poems that rhyme

These winter poems rhyme and keep a steady beat, so they are easy to read aloud.

12. The Week the Lake Froze

The lake was loud all autumn long
With wind and geese and rain,
Then one still night it stopped its song
And would not start again.

By morning it was hard and gray,
A floor of polished stone;
The ducks came down, then slid away
And grumbled on their own.

By Saturday the shore was lined
With skates and boots and sleds,
And every hat of every kind
Bobbed by on happy heads.

The lake will talk again in spring
With wind and geese and rain;
For now it lets the skaters sing
And keeps its own refrain.

13. Snow Chores

At six I salt the icy walk,
I clear the car and hear the talk
Of neighbors' shovels down the street,
A scrape-and-scrape, a steady beat.

Inside, the boots stand by the door
And leave their puddles on the floor;
The gloves, in mismatched, steaming pairs,
Are draped across the kitchen chairs.

It's work, this season, all of it.
And yet I like the way we sit,
Red-cheeked, with coffee, when we're done,
And watch the snow outlast the sun.

14. The Night Plow

At two in the morning, while all of us sleep,
A plow lights the hill where the drifts are piled deep;
The driver has coffee, the radio low,
And a long night of pushing back mountains of snow.

He clears the school road and the street by the store,
The lane by the clinic, then turns back for more;
The flakes keep on coming, he keeps going round,
A small orange light and a scrape on the ground.

So when you wake up and the road's been made right,
Say thanks to the driver who drove through the night.

Snow poems

Snow poems for the mornings when the world turns white.

15. Snow in the Night

It started after ten
When all the house was still;
It fell, and fell, and then
It filled the windowsill.

It hushed the passing cars,
It rounded every wall,
It put out half the stars
And did not stop at all.

By morning, every yard
Was one long sheet of white,
And no one's step had marred
The work done in the night.

16. What Snow Does

It turns the parked car into a loaf of bread,
the picnic table into a wedding cake,
the fence into a row of sugar teeth,
and the whole loud street
into a room where people whisper.

17. Reading Fresh Snow

Before anyone else is up,
the yard has printed the news:
the rabbit's prints in little groups of four,
the cat's neat dotted line,
a crow's hops around the feeder,
and, by the gate,
our neighbor's big boots
going out early
and not yet coming back.

18. Six Arms of Ice

A snowflake landed on my sleeve,
A star too small to hold;
I counted six thin arms of ice
Before it lost its cold.

I held my breath to keep it there,
I didn't even blink,
But jackets are a warmer place
Than snowflakes seem to think.

Winter poems for kids and classrooms

Short, rhyming winter poems for kids, from kindergarten up, for circle time, an assembly or a winter bulletin board. For holiday verses to perform in December, see our Christmas poems for kids.

19. Ready for Snow (an action rhyme for kindergarten)

Snow pants on, I wiggle in,
Zip my coat up to my chin,
Pull my hat down, warm and snug,
Wrap my scarf, a woolly hug.

Stamp my boots: one, two, and three,
Clap my mittens: look at me!
Door wide open, out I go,
Ready, steady, here's the snow!

Children act out each line, then tiptoe to the "door" at the end.

20. Our Snowman

We rolled the bottom big and wide,
We rolled the middle, side to side,
We rolled a head and lifted it,
And Dad said, "Careful!" Then it fit.

Two stones for eyes, a carrot nose,
A row of buttons down his clothes,
Two sticks for arms, a scarf, a hat,
And Grandpa's glasses. Look at that!

He stood all week beside the gate
And waved at cars and stayed up late,
Till Sunday, when the sun came out
And he became a puddle. (Pout.)

21. Where the Animals Go in Winter

The bear curls up inside her den
And sleeps till spring comes round again.
The geese fly south in one long V,
As high as clouds, and fast and free.

The squirrel digs her acorns out
From hiding places all about.
The frogs sink down in muddy beds
And sleep with ice above their heads.

The chickadee puffs up her coat
And sings a bright and cheerful note.
And me? I zip my jacket tight
And go out sledding till it's night.

22. The Missing Mitten

I left the house with mittens, two,
Both red, with stripes of white;
I came back home with one. Who knew
That mittens could take flight?

I checked my pockets and my hood,
I checked beneath the slide,
I checked the snowman (he looked good,
But nothing was inside).

Now Grandma's sewn them to a string
That runs from cuff to cuff.
I cannot lose a single thing.
(I've lost my hat. Enough.)

Winter acrostic poems and a template

In an acrostic poem, the first letters of the lines spell a word down the page. These two winter acrostic poem examples rhyme in pairs, but an acrostic doesn't have to rhyme.

23. WINTER

Wind at the window, whistling low,
Icicles lined up in a row,
Noses turn pink on the way to school,
Teeth start to chatter, as a rule.
Every boot leaves tracks in the snow,
Red cheeks come home to the fire's glow.

24. SNOW

Settling slowly all through the night,
Not making a sound, it turns the world white.
Out come the sleds and a bright woolly hat,
We build a fort, and the snowballs go SPLAT!

A winter acrostic poem template

Copy this frame onto the board. Each letter gets one sense, so no line starts blank.

• S: something you see on a snowy day (sleds, a snowman, a white roof)
• N: something you hear, or can't hear (the hush, boots crunching, the wind)
• O: something you do outside (building a fort, making a snow angel)
• W: how winter feels on your face and hands, or inside you

For a longer poem, spell WINTER or FROST and add taste (hot cocoa) and smell (wood smoke). If the class gets stuck, type the word into our free acrostic poem generator for a sample to rewrite, or follow our step-by-step acrostic guide.

Cozy winter poems for adults

Quieter winter poems for adults: for a book club, a journal, or a friend who is finding the dark months long.

25. The Radiator Knocks

The old radiator knocks
like a neighbor who knows we're home,
then sighs, and ticks,
and the warm starts at our socks
and climbs.

Outside, the wind tries every door.
In here: the tea going cold, the lamp,
the book face-down on your chest,
and you, asleep
before the end of the chapter.

26. Soup Weather

When sleet is ticking on the pane
I find the biggest pot again,
An onion, carrots, salt and thyme,
And one whole afternoon of time.

The window fogs, the kettle sings,
The kitchen smells of simple things,
And soup, which never asks for more
Than patience, simmers. Then the door:

You stamp the cold off, cheeks gone red,
And find the table, bowls, and bread.

27. A Winter Meditation

Sit by the window for one minute.
Let your shoulders drop.
Pick one snowflake, only one,
and follow it all the way down.
Breathe in. Breathe out the list.

Winter is not asking you to bloom.
It is asking you to rest
the way the field rests,
the way the bulbs wait in the dark,
knowing exactly what they're for.

28. Solstice Sonnet

For the winter solstice, the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, around December 21. It is a Shakespearean sonnet that turns at line 9; see more sonnet examples.

The year comes down to this: a lamp at four,
a sky the color of a pewter spoon,
the wind's thin fingers trying every door,
and dark that settles in by afternoon.
The garden sleeps beneath its frozen crust,
the birds have thinned to sparrows and a crow,
the plans we made in June have gathered dust,
and nothing grows, and nothing tries to grow.
But here's the turn: this longest night's the place
the year swings back, a hinge toward the light,
and every dawn from now wins back some space,
a little here, a little there, from night.
So light the lamp, and let the long dark be;
it's turning now, though it's too slow to see.

29. Two Chairs

Forty winters, more or less,
we've watched the first snow from these chairs.
You always say it's early.
I always say it's late.
Neither of us has ever been right,
and neither of us minds.

Classic winter poems

These classic winter poems were all published before 1931, so they are in the public domain in the US. We checked each text word for word against the source linked under its title.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost (1923)

Published: New Hampshire (1923). Read the book on Project Gutenberg

A traveler stops his horse at dusk to watch snow fill a quiet wood. He is tempted to stay, but he has promises to keep. Its four stanzas of iambic tetrameter rhyme AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD, and it ends on its most famous lines:

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.

Read the full poem and what it means on our page of Robert Frost poems.

Dust of Snow, by Robert Frost (1923)

Published: New Hampshire (1923), the same book

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

What it means: A crow shakes snow from a hemlock onto the speaker, and that small, cold shock saves the rest of a day he had "rued," or regretted. Crows and hemlocks usually suggest gloom, which makes the lift more surprising. The poem is one sentence of 34 words, rhymed ABAB CDCD.

It sifts from leaden sieves, by Emily Dickinson (1891)

First printed: Poems, Second Series (1891), under the title "The Snow". Read it on Project Gutenberg

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 flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem,—
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen,—
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

What it means: The poem never names the snow. "It" sifts like flour from lead-gray clouds, smooths hills and fields into one face, wraps the fence rails and covers the empty harvest fields. Then it stops, and its "artisans," the flakes, vanish as if they had never worked. This is the 1891 printed text; modern editions based on her manuscripts differ and are still in copyright. More of her winter poems, such as "There's a certain slant of light", are on our page of Emily Dickinson poems.

Winter ("When icicles hang by the wall"), by William Shakespeare

From: the song that ends Love's Labour's Lost, first printed in 1598. Read the play on Project Gutenberg

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
"Tu-whit, Tu-whoo!" A merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl:
"Tu-whit, Tu-whoo!" A merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

What it means: A country household in deep winter. The shepherd blows on his fingers ("blows his nail"), the roads are muddy ("ways be foul"), and Joan the cook stirs the pot to stop it boiling over ("keel the pot"). Coughing drowns out the parson's wise words ("saw"), and the "crabs" are roasted crab apples in a hot drink. Editions print the owl's call slightly differently; this is the Project Gutenberg text.

The Snow Man, by Wallace Stevens (1921)

First printed: Poetry magazine, October 1921; collected in Harmonium (1923). Read it on Wikisource

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.

What it means: The whole poem is one sentence. To see a frozen landscape without thinking "how miserable," Stevens says, you need "a mind of winter," like a snow man's. The last line turns on the word "nothing": a listener who adds no feelings of his own sees only what is there, including the emptiness itself.

A modern winter poem to find: "First Snow" by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver's "First Snow" is still in copyright, so we don't print it. It follows a day of falling snow that seems to ask the speaker big questions, then a clear, starry night when she walks out into the silence. Read it in American Primitive (1983), the book that won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984.

How to choose and use a winter poem

Start with the moment, then pick the poem.

Moment	Try these
A January card, note or text	2. January Page, 4. A Winter Wish
A snow-day photo caption	1. First Frost, 9. Deep Snow, 16. What Snow Does
Kindergarten circle time	19. Ready for Snow, 20. Our Snowman
Grades 2 to 5	21. Where the Animals Go in Winter, the acrostic template, "Dust of Snow"
Middle and high school	"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", "The Snow Man", 28. Solstice Sonnet
A book club, care home or open mic	29. Two Chairs, 25. The Radiator Knocks, "It sifts from leaden sieves"

• Add one real detail. Swap in your street, your lake or your dog's name. "The Week the Lake Froze" becomes yours once it's your lake.
• Keep the beat. Tap the strong beats as you read. If a new word adds a beat, find a shorter one.
• Add a line of your own to a card. For example: "Thank you for clearing our walk all winter." Or: "Stay warm. Spring is closer than it looks."
• Read it slowly. Breathe at the stanza breaks and let the last line land.

Write your own winter poem, free

FAQs

What is the most famous winter poem?

Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1923) is one of the best-known winter poems in English. Other famous ones are Frost's "Dust of Snow", Emily Dickinson's "It sifts from leaden sieves" and Wallace Stevens's "The Snow Man".

What is a good short winter poem?

Frost's "Dust of Snow" is eight lines and 34 words, small enough for a card. Of the original poems here, "First Frost" is two lines and the winter haiku are three.

What is a good winter poem for kindergarten?

Try "Ready for Snow": children act out getting dressed, line by line, and the rhymes come in easy pairs. "Our Snowman" makes a good second poem.

What words rhyme with snow, cold and ice?

Snow: glow, slow, go, below, know, toe. Cold: hold, old, gold, fold, told. Ice: nice, twice, slice, mice. Frost: lost, crossed, tossed. Sleet: feet, street, sweet, treat.

What does "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" mean?

A traveler stops to watch snow fall in the woods, then rides on because he has promises to keep. Many readers also hear a second meaning in the repeated last line, with "sleep" as the rest at the end of a life. The poem allows both readings.