Inviolate winter, cold and still and white,
Give me a peace, that knows not joy or pain;
Banish the spring; let love call out in vain
For her dread toll of torment and delight.
Let no sweet warmth thaw me to life again;
Let not the darkness splinter into light;
Give me a dreamless sleep, a mornless night,
A silent earth that knows not sun or rain.
Defeat the tingling urgency of spring,
That wracks the earth with torture and desire,
Planting each breeze with fever and with fire,
Wantonly stirring life in everything.
Winter, incurious, aloof, apart,
You rape no secret and you tell no story.
Wrapped in your shroud I’ll scorn the summer’sglory
Of burning flowers, that flaunt death at their heart.
You lay a veil over the tired eyes
Of earth. Unsmiling and without a word
You draw the curtain, and you sheath the sword
Hopeless and fearless, passionless and wise.
You have no pain to spend, nor hope to borrow,
In whom both past and future miss their way.
Nor shall we grudge it that you steal to-morrow,
Who equally have stolen yesterday.
V
If you don’t love my love, my dear,
It is not there.
What you don’t love can never be
A thought of mine, a part of me.
And so, beware!
For every smile and every tear
Is born of hope and bred of fear;
Only despair
Is mine alone. And being mine
Can blot your image, lock your shrine.
In the still dust beneath your feet
I lie alone and incomplete,
But you,
Though you may pass me in disdain.
Will know the all-fulfilling pain.
And rue
The burning love that, liking not,
You fanned to flame and left to rot.
For it is not my love, my dear,
Has died,
But you; the glow-worms in your eyes,
The singing echoes of your sighs
That lied.
Where is the brightness of the glance
That taught my secret thoughts to dance?
Tell me
Where is the music in your voice
That made the nightingale rejoice?
I see
No more sweet hopes, no more sweet fears,
You’ve lost your smiles, you’ve lost my tears.
Yet how
Deep in your soul by day and night
My constant love gave warmth and light,
With many a bitter blast it fought
Blood of your heart, bone of your thought!
And now
My love you have extinguishèd
And you, my dear, not I, are dead.