Meanings
alternative where are the snows of yester-year
- informalliteraryrhetoricUsed to emphasize that life or time passes quickly.
Wo sind die Tränen von gestern abend? / Wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr?
2015, Bertolt Brecht, “Nanna’s Song”, in David Constantine, Tom Kuhn, transl., Love Poems, New York, N.Y.; London: Liveright Publishing Corporation, translation of original in German, →ISBN, stanza 1, page 685 more examples
Where is Echo, beheld of no man, / Only heard on river and mere,— / She whose beauty was more than human? … / But where are the snows of yester-year?
1869 (date written), François Villon, “[Poems.] Three Translations from François Villon, 1450. I. The Ballad of Dead Ladies.”, in Dante Gabriel Rossetti, transl., Poems, London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis, […], published 26 April 1870, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 177It is in this, also, that he rises out of himself into the higher spheres of art. So, in the ballade by which he is best known, he rings the changes on names that once stood for beautiful and queenly women, and are now no more than letters and a legend. "Where are the snows of yester year?" runs the burden.
1877 August, Robert Louis Stevenson, “François Villon, Student, Poet, and Housebreaker: The Large Testament”, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books, London: Chatto and Windus, […], published 1882, →OCLC, page 234[“][W]here is the Ocala Boy?” / “‘Where are the snows of yester-year?’” laughed Rhett, as he opened the gate and passed under the great trees in the enclosure of Mrs. Forceythe’s grounds.
1895, Maurice Thompson, “An Hour in a Tree-top”, in The Ocala Boy: A Story of Florida Town and Forest, Boston, Mass.: Lothrop Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 88Pathetic as its passing is, one cannot honestly regret the old school. I was looking last night at the programme of my very first hall, and received a terrible shock to my time-sense. Where are the snows of yesteryear? Where are the entertainers of 1895?
1915, Thomas Burke, “An Entertainment Night: Round the Halls”, in Nights in Town: A London Autobiography, London: George Allen & Unwin […], →OCLC, page 44It seems to me that it isn't these little acts and little connections we make in our lives that matter so very much. They pass away, and where are they? Where … Where are the snows of yesteryear? … It's what endures through one's life that matters; my own life matters to me, in its long continuance and development.
1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter V, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, [Germany?]: Privately printed, →OCLC, pages 49–50
Origin
From the poem “The Ballad of Dead Ladies” by the English poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) (see the quotation below), an 1869 translation of the line “Mais où sont les neiges d’antan” from “Ballade des dames du temps jadis” (“Ballade of Ladies of Time Gone By”, written 1461) by the French poet François Villon (c. 1431 – p. 1463).
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish aika rientää, niin muuttuu maailma, Eskoni
- aika rientääused to emphasize that life or time passes quickly
- niin muuttuu maailma, Eskoniused to emphasize that life or time passes quickly
French où sont les neiges d'antan
- où sont les neiges d'antanused to emphasize that life or time passes quickly
German wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahr
- wo ist der Schnee vom vergangenen Jahrused to emphasize that life or time passes quickly
Cite this entry
where are the snows of yesteryear. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/where%20are%20the%20snows%20of%20yesteryear
“where are the snows of yesteryear.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/where%20are%20the%20snows%20of%20yesteryear. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “where are the snows of yesteryear,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/where%20are%20the%20snows%20of%20yesteryear.
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