Poems, Quotes, and Sayings about the Month of February (2024)

As the cold weather and dreary February days dampen our spirits, this is the perfect time to fill your thoughts with beautiful poetry. Let these poems, quotes, and sayings about the month of February uplift your heart until we see the signs of spring.

These poems are wonderful to copy or to memorize and recite with your family. Better yet, find a creative way to display them in your home!

February Poems

From Longfellow to Teasdale, these inspiring verses penned by well-loved poets show us the hidden beauty we can find in the dark, foggy days of February if we look a little more closely.

1. I’m Not Just February by Annette Wynne

I’m not just February
With winds that blow
All day, and piled-up snow;
I’m Washington and Lincoln, too,
Who kept our country’s flag for you!
I’m Valentine of airy grace—
With golden hearts and hearts of lace
And pretty cards that people send,
Quite as a secret, to a friend.
Though I am short of days and small,
I’m quite a big month, after all!

2. Afternoon in February by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o’er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.

3. The Shortest Month by Adeline Whitney, 1824-1906

Will Winter never be over?
Will the dark days never go?
Must the buttercup and clover
Be always hid under the snow?

Ah, lend me your little ear, love!
Hark! ’tis a beautiful thing;
The weariest month of the year, love,
Is shortest and nearest to spring.

4. Leap Year by Annette Wynne

Little month of February,
You are small, but worthy—very!
Will you grow up like the others,
Like your sister months and brothers?
Every four years with a bound
With a leap up from the ground,
Trying to grow tall as they—
All you stretch is one small day!
Even then you’re not so tall
But just the shortest month of all.

5. February by Helen Hunt Jackson

Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter’s pregnant silence, still:
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are the days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year’s ill,
And prayer to purify the new year’s will:
Fit days,—ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,
Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste
And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed
The ardent summer’s joy to have and taste:
Fit days—to take to last year’s losses heed,
To reckon clear the new life’s sterner need;
Fit days—for Feast of Expiation placed!

6. February Twilight by Sara Teasdale

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
That saw what I could see–
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.

7. Late February By Ted Kooser

The first warm day,
and by mid-afternoon
the snow is no more
than a washing
strewn over the yards,
the bedding rolled in knots
and leaking water,
the white shirts lying
under the evergreens.
Through the heaviest drifts
rise autumn’s fallen
bicycles, small carnivals
of paint and chrome,
the Octopus
and Tilt-A-Whirl
beginning to turn
in the sun. Now children,
stiffened by winter
and dressed, somehow,
like old men, mutter
and bend to the work
of building dams.
But such a spring is brief;
by five o’clock
the chill of sundown,
darkness, the blue TVs
flashing like storms
in the picture windows,
the yards gone gray,
the wet dogs barking
at nothing. Far off
across the cornfields
staked for streets and sewers,
the body of a farmer
missing since fall
will show up
in his garden tomorrow,
as unexpected
as a tulip.

Valentine Poems

As we celebrate Valentine’s Day during this month of love, you don’t want to miss these classic romantic poems! Share these with your special someone and relish this beautiful poetry together.

8. Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Also called the Valentine Poem)
By William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

9. A Valentine by Laura Elizabeth Richards

Oh! little loveliest lady mine,
What shall I send for your valentine?
Summer and flowers are far away;
Gloomy old Winter is king to-day;
Buds will not blow, and sun will not shine:
What shall I do for a valentine?

I’ve searched the gardens all through and through
For a bud to tell of my love so true;
But buds are asleep, and blossoms are dead,
And the snow beats down on my poor little head:
So, little loveliest lady mine,
Here is my heart for your valentine!

10. How Do I Love Thee? By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

11. To My Dear and Loving Husband By Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Winter Poems

When the cold and dreary days threaten to sink your mood, cozy up to the fire with these lovely winter poems that will cheer the soul!

12. A Winter Night by Sara Teasdale

My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
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 to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.

13. The Snowdrop By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid,
Ever as of old time,
Solitary firstling,
Coming in the cold time,
Prophet of the gay time,
Prophet of the May time,
Prophet of the roses,
Many, many welcomes,
February fair-maid!

14. 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!”

15. The Invitation By Percy Bysshe Shelley

To the rough year just awake…
The brightest hour of unborn spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found it seems the halcyon morn,
To hoar February born;
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains…

Kids Poems About February

I try to remind my kids that poems are like mysteries. You don’t see all that’s there the first time you read it. You should read it again and again. Each time you read, you will see it in a different light and understand something new.

You don’t have to spend a long time reading poetry with your kids for them to appreciate it. Try reading a poem a day or a poem of the week, letting them soak in, a little here and a little there.

16. 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.

17. February by John Updike

The sun rides higher
Every trip.
The sidewalk shows.
Icicles drip.

A snowstorm comes,
And cars are stuck,
And ashes fly
From the old town truck.

The chickadees
Grow plump on seed
That Mother pours
Where they can feed,

And snipping, snipping
Scissors run
To cut out hearts
For everyone.

18. The Snow That Never Drifts by Emily Dickinson

The Snow that never drifts –
The transient, fragrant snow
That comes a single time a Year
Is softly driving now –

So thorough in the Tree
At night beneath the star
That it was February’s Foot
Experience would swear –

Like Winter as a Face
We stern and former knew
Repaired of all but Loneliness
By Nature’s Alibit –

Were every storm so spice
The Value could not be –
We buy with contrast – Pang is good
As near as memory

19. 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.

20. Potomac Town in February by Carl Sandburg

The bridge says:
Come across, try me; see how good I am.
The big rock in the river says:
Look at me; learn how to stand up.
The white water says:
I go on; around, under, over, I go on.
A kneeling, scraggly pine says:
I am here yet; they nearly got me last year.
A sliver of moon slides by on a high wind calling:
I know why; I’ll see you to-morrow;
I’ll tell you everything to-morrow.

February Quotes

It’s interesting to see what different people have said about February throughout the centuries. A common theme? February is not a popular month!

“Why, what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?” William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again…”
Sara Coleridge, “The Months”

“You, February, — seem to be
Old January’s understudy,
But play the part too vaudeville-y, —
With wind too moist and snow too muddy —
You overfreeze and overthaw —
Your ” Hos’ler Jo ” -like recitation
But hints that you’re, at best, a raw
Imitation.” -James Whitcomb Riley

“I know him, February’s thrush,
And loud at eve he valentines
On sprays that paw the naked bush
Where soon will sprout the thorns and bines.”
George Meredith, “The Thrush in February”

“On the wind in February
Snowflakes float still,
Half inclined to turn to rain,
Nipping, dripping, chill.”
Christina Georgina Rossetti, “A Year’s Windfalls,”

“February is the shortest month, so if you’re having a miserable month, try to schedule it for February.” Lemony Snicket

“I had it figured out that the reason God made February short a few days was because he knew that by the time people came to the end of it they would die if they had to stand one more blasted day.” Katherine Paterson

Sayings about February

Have you heard of these well-known sayings about February?

“Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except February, twenty-eight days clear,
And twenty-nine in each leap year.”

“If bees get out in February, the next day will be windy and rainy.” -Farmer’s Almanac

“February fill dyke
Be it black or be it white.”
“All the months of the year curse a fair Februeer.”

“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
But if Candlemas Day be clouds and rain
Winter is gone and will not come again.”

“Winter’s back breaks about the middle of February.” -Farmer’s Almanac

“If February bring no rain
Tis neither good for grass nor grain.”

“In February, if thou hearest thunder,
Thou shalt see a summer wonder.”

“There is always one fine week in February.” -Farmer’s Almanac

“Fogs in February mean frosts in May.” -Farmer’s Almanac

From romantic verse to inspirational ponderings, I hope these poems, quotes, and sayings about the month of February have warmed your spirits as they have mine!

Happy February!

For more seasonal posts, you may enjoy these posts.

Traditional Thanksgiving Poems and Songs for Kids

Useful Life Skills Suitable to Teach in Winter