Chilled into a serenity
As rigid as your pose
You linger trustingly,
But a gutter waits for you.
Your elegance does not secure
You favors with the sun.
He is not one to pity fragileness.
He thinks all cheeks should burn
And feel how tears can run.

A flock of winds came winging from the North,
Strong birds with fighting pinions driving forth
      With a resounding call:—

Where will they close their wings and cease their cries—
Between what warming seas and conquering skies—
      And fold, and fall?

All day the clouds
   Grow cold and fall,
And soft the white fleece shrouds
   Field, hill and wall;
And now I know
   Why comes the snow:
The bare black places lie
   Too near the sky.

                                                          1.

Three months ago, the stream did flow,
    The lilies bloomed along the edge;
And we were lingering to and fro,—
Where none will track thee in this snow,
    Along the stream, beside the hedge.
Ah! sweet, be free to come and go;
    For if I do not hear thy foot,
    The frozen river is as mute,—
    The flowers have dried down to the root;
    And why, since these be changed since May,
        Shouldst thou change less than they?

                                                          2.

And slow, slow as the winter snow,
    The tears have drifted to mine eyes;
And my two cheeks, three months ago,
Set blushing at thy praises so,
    Put paleness on for a disguise.
Ah! sweet, be free to praise and go;
    For if my face is turned to pale,
    It was thine oath that first did fail,—
    It was thy love proved false and frail!
    And why, since these be changed, I trow,
        Should I change less than thou?

The park is winter-plucked. The sky
and the grey pavement show a sheeted face:
the covered stare of one who had to die.
Now, when men sweat,
shoveling muddy snow or heaving ice,
they know the helpless sweat that will not wet them twice,
they know the staggering heart, the smothered breath
that stand between this knowing and the end.
Though they must drag a net of heavy hours
about their straining limbs,
though they behold
love like a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire—
this net will break before they tire,
this cloud, this flame will vanish and be cold.
Men think of this who limp against the wind
that freezes hate and sucks at their desire.
Winter is on us now, and will return:
soiled snows will choke the city streets again,
bleak twilights dull the windows as before,
dark hurrying crowds push towards lit rooms in vain.
One day we shall not kiss or quarrel any more.

The sheep get up and make their many tracks
And bear a load of snow upon their backs,
And gnaw the frozen turnip to the ground
With sharp quick bite, and then go noising round
The boy that pecks the turnips all the day
And knocks his hands to keep the cold away
And laps his legs in straw to keep them warm
And hides behind the hedges from the storm.
The sheep, as tame as dogs, go where he goes
And try to shake their fleeces from the snows,
Then leave their frozen meal and wander round
The stubble stack that stands beside the ground,
And lie all night and face the drizzling storm
And shun the hovel where they might be warm.

Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.

Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks
And past the tight boards hardly a wind could enter,
I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,
Far from my cause, my proper heat, my center.

Better to walk forth in the murderous air
And wash my wound in the snows; that would be healing,
Because my heart would throb less painful there,
Being caked with cold, and past the smart of feeling.

Which would you choose, and for what boot in gold,
The absence, or the absence and the cold?

The wintry west extends his blast,
   And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
   The blinding sleet and snaw:
While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
   And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
   And pass the heartless day.

“The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,”
   The joyless winter-day
Let others fear, to me more dear
   Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
   My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
   Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Power Supreme whose mighty scheme
   These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest; they must be best,
   Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want—O do Thou grant
   This one request of mine.—
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
   Assist me to resign.

The ghost of Winter stalks amidst the boughs
Of Spring and drags along his icy shroud;
The corn flowers and the wheat, with broken vows,
Are now beneath the storm untimely bowed.

O Winter, thou wert buried on the hills;
Thine epitaph was written with melted snow;
Thy skeleton is in the barren rills,
Where once thy silvery life-blood used to flow.

Why visits the glimpses of the sun
So soon, what message bring’st thou from the dead?
Why rudely interrupt the children’s fun
And havoc among the Guests of Summer spread?

Behold, the branches shiver, the blossoms fall;
The lilac in the leaves a shelter seeks;
Thy savage winds the Queen of May appal,—
They pale with summer’s dust her rosy cheeks.

Withhold the solemn music of thy gale
Until the golden notes of Spring are spun;
The opera in the trees is but begun,
O, drown it not with thy benighted wail.

For thee May’s winged madonnas will not sing,
Nor in thy presence will they now appear:
Begone, that their sweet voices may we hear—
Begone, the world to-day belongs to Spring.

Here in the time of the Winter morn, Love,
I see the Sunlit leaves of changing hue
Burn clear against a sky of tender blue,
Here in the time of the Winter morn, Love.
Here in the time of the Winter morn, Love,
I hear the low tone bells of changing song
Ring clear upon the air the full day long,
Here in the time of the Winter morn, Love.
I hear the bells, I see the changing leaves,
And one lone heart for Summer silent grieves,
Here in the time of the Winter morn, Love.

They who to warmer regions run,

May bless the favour of the sun,

But seek in vain what charms us here,

Life’s picture, varying with the year.

Spring, and her wanton train advance

Like Youth to lead the festive dance,

All, all her scenes are mirth and play,

And blushing blossoms own her sway.

The Summer next (those blossoms blown)

Brings on the fruits that spring had sown,

Thus men advance, impelled by time,

And Nature triumphs in her prime.

Then Autumn crowns the beauteous year,

The groves a sicklier aspect wear;

And mournful she (the lot of all)

Matures her fruits, to make them fall.

Clad in the vestments of a tomb,

Old age is only Winter’s gloom—

Winter, alas! shall spring restore,

But youth returns to man no more.

Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed
                 Into awe.
No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed
                 Vibration to draw
Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed.

A crow floats past on level wings
                 Noiselessly.
Uninterrupted silence swings
                 Invisibly, inaudibly 
To and fro in our misgivings.

We do not look at each other, we hide
                 Our daunted eyes.
White earth, and ruins, ourselves, and nothing beside.
                 It all belies
Our existence; we wait, and are still denied.

We are folded together, men and the snowy ground
                 Into nullity.
There is silence, only the silence, never a sound
                 Nor a verity
To assist us; disastrously silence-bound!

O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, 
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn 
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn 
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire 
The streams than under ice. June could not hire 
Her roses to forego the strength they learn 
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn 
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire 
In vain to build. 
                                O Heart, when Love’s sun goes 
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease, 
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace. 
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose. 
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows, 
The winter is the winter’s own release.

These be 
three silent things: 
The falling snow . . . the hour 
Before the dawn . . . the mouth of one 
Just dead.

Like Brooms of Steel  
The Snow and Wind  
Had swept the Winter Street -
The House was hooked  
The Sun sent out   
Faint Deputies of Heat -
Where rode the Bird  
The Silence tied  
His ample - plodding Steed
The Apple in the Cellar snug  
Was all the one that played.

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness every where!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time;
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
    Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,
    That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow.
And the storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me;
I will not, cannot go.

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
    A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
    The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east: we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore, 
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did your nightly chores,—
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd’s-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold’s pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro
Crossed and recrossed the wingèd snow:
And ere the early bed-time came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

        *
			   
As night drew on, and, from the crest
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west,
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank
From sight beneath the smothering bank,
We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney-back,—
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick,
And on its top the stout back-stick;
The knotty forestick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-furnished room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom;
While radiant with a mimic flame
Outside the sparkling drift became,
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free.
The crane and pendent trammels showed,
The Turks’ heads on the andirons glowed;
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme: “Under the tree,
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
There the witches are making tea.”
The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the somber green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed where’er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

I know it must be winter (though I sleep)—

I know it must be winter, for I dream

I dip my bare feet in the running stream,

And flowers are many, and the grass grows deep.

I know I must be old (how age deceives!)

I know I must be old, for, all unseen,

My heart grows young, as autumn fields grow green

When late rains patter on the falling sheaves.

I know I must be tired (and tired souls err)—

I know I must be tired, for all my soul

To deeds of daring beats a glad, faint roll,

As storms the riven pine to music stir.

I know I must be dying (Death draws near)—

I know I must be dying, for I crave

Life—life, strong life, and think not of the grave,

And turf-bound silence, in the frosty year.

The half-stripped trees
struck by a wind together,
bending all,
the leaves flutter drily
and refuse to let go
or driven like hail
stream bitterly out to one side
and fall
where the salvias, hard carmine,—
like no leaf that ever was—
edge the bare garden.

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon,—such as she was,
So late-arising,—to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.

I have walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart's desire.
She came—she came—and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.

All Nashville is a-chill! And everywhere,
As wind-swept sands upon the deserts blow,
There is, each moment, sifted through the air,
A powered blast of January snow.
O thoughtless Dandelion! to be misled
By a few warm days to leave thy natural bed,
Was folly growth and blooming over soon.
And yet, thou blasted, yellow-coated gem!
Full many hearts have but a common boon
With thee, now freezing on thy slender stem.
When once the heart-blooms by love’s fervid breath
Is left, and chilling snow is sifted in,
It still may beat, but there is blast and death
To all that blooming life that might have been.

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,
Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

I. IN WINTER
 
     Myself
Pale mornings, and 
   I rise. 
 
     Still Morning
Snow air--my fingers curl.
 
     Awakening
New snow, O pine of dawn!
 
     Winter Echo
Thin air! My mind is gone.
 
     The Hunter
Run! In the magpie's shadow.
 
     No Being
I, bent. Thin nights receding. 
 
 
II. IN SPRING
 
     Spring
I walk out the world's door.
 
     May
Oh, evening in my hair!
 
     Spring Rain
My doorframe smells of leaves.
 
     Song
Why should I stop
   for spring?
 
 
III. IN SUMMER AND AUTUMN
 
     Sunrise
Pale bees! O whither now?
 
     Fields
I did not pick
   a flower.
 
     At Evening
Like leaves my feet passed by.
 
     Cool Nights
At night bare feet on flowers!
 
     Sleep
Like winds my eyelids close.
 
     The Aspen's Song
The summer holds me here.
 
     The Walker
In dream my feet are still. 
 
     Blue Mountains
A deer walks that mountain.
 
     God of Roads
I, peregrine of noon. 
 
     September
Faint gold! O think not here.
 
     A Lady
She's sun on autumn leaves. 
 
     Alone
I saw day's shadow strike.
 
     A Deer
The trees rose in the dawn.
 
     Man in Desert
His feet run as eyes blink. 
 
     Desert
The tented autumn, gone!
 
     The End
Dawn rose, and desert shrunk.
 
     High Valleys
In sleep I filled these lands.
 
     Awaiting Snow
The well of autumn--dry.

Thy brow is girt, thy robe with gems inwove;
    And palaces of frost-work, on the eye,
    Flash out, and gleam in every gorgeous dye,
The pencil, dipped in glorious things above,
    Can bring to earth. Oh, thou art passing fair!
But cold and cheerless as the heart of death,
Without one warm, free pulse, one softening breath,
    One soothing whisper for the ear of Care.
Fortune too has her Winter. In the Spring,
    We watch the bud of promise; and the flower
    Looks out upon us at the Summer hour;
And Autumn days the blessed harvest bring;
    Then comes the reign of jewels rare, and gold,
    When brows flash light, but hearts grow strangely cold.

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Cold is the winter day, misty and dark:
   The sunless sky with faded gleams is rent:
And patches of thin snow outlying, mark
   The landscape with a drear disfigurement.

The trees their mournful branches lift aloft:
   The oak with knotty twigs is full of trust,
With bud-thronged bough the cherry in the croft;
   The chestnut holds her gluey knops upthrust.

No birds sing, but the starling chaps his bill
   And chatters mockingly; the newborn lambs
Within their strawbuilt fold beneath the hill
   Answer with plaintive cry their bleating dams.

Their voices melt in welcome dreams of spring,
   Green grass and leafy trees and sunny skies:
My fancy decks the woods, the thrushes sing,
    Meadows are gay, bees hum and scents arise.

And God the Maker doth my heart grow bold
   To praise wintry works not understood,
Who all the worlds and ages doth behold,
   Evil and good as one, and all as good.