The Shortest Day
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
Susan Cooper
Linking to Kat Sloma’s Exploring with a Camera
Sherrygaley.com 
Your photo is beautiful and the poem…just perfect!!
I love this photo! So impressionistic and soft. Thank you for sharing these thoughts on the solstice and for joining in with Exploring with a Camera! Lovely to have you.
Welcome Yule! That’s such an evocative image. And it’s snowing here on your blog too!
Lovely sherry and I love Susan Cooper, It’s great to think we have had the shortest day ..
LOVE this photo! Also my husbands birthday. So glad the world did not end.
Thanks, Sherry. I think Winter Solstice is to be celebrated! We have had really heavy clouds the past couple of days so it gets light really late and dark really early. I always look forward to the lengthening of daylight.
Such a cool image.