Katherine Mansfield’s “Winter Song” describes a miserable stretch of winter weather through simple, song-like repetition. Rain and wind turn to snow and sleet, then to hail and ice. The speaker asks whether summer will ever come again and whether winter will ever end. The repeated lines—“rain and wind, and wind and rain”—make the cold feel inescapable, as if the season is stuck in a loop.
Beneath the weather, there is real sympathy. The speaker worries about beggar children with no fire and perhaps nowhere warm to go, and notices robins waiting to be fed as they battle the gale. The mood is bleak and weary, but also tender: someone looking out at a harsh world and feeling for the vulnerable. The simple rhyme keeps it song-like, but the concern is genuine.