'Tis winter and the darkening skies
Awake regretful memories
Of wooded hill and sunlit plain,
Ringing with anthems to the sun
Until his arching course was run
And nightingales took up the strain.
The trees, then dense with leaves and flowers,
Stood through the long and smiling hours,
Housing an honest little folk,
Throbbing with life by day and night,
Whose voices, vibrant with delight,
Of happy labour ever spoke.
The trees now spread their haggard arms,
Bared of their pristine, leafy charms,
To cold and unresponsive skies
That neither smile nor weep, but chill
With cold indifference, and kill
Hope that all nature underlies.
A dreary moan floats on the wind
From the gaunt oaks, that, ill defined,
Show spectral shapes against the sky
From which the fleeting day has flown
While dead leaves on the earth are strown
To mark the summer's mortuary.
Where are the thousand things of life
That erstwhile made the place all rife
With busy hum and restless wing
And turmoil of a world of love?
The blackbird on her nest above,
Below, the beetle tunnelling.
Gone with the happiness I knew
Because the heavens were always blue,
While the sun shone from day to day
And winter was not. 'Twas as far
And nebulous as yonder star
That throws its cold and sickly ray
Where once a glorious flood of light
Ceased only with the falling night.
Gloom hovers where triumphant joy
Beatified each passing hour,
For Winter now with ruthless power
Fulfils its mission to destroy.
_The Voice of Winter._
"I bring not death but rest to flower and tree,
"And nurse the flame divine, Vitality,
"That burns immortal since primeval night
"When the Creator said: 'Let there be light!'
"And loosed the sun upon his blazing way
"To roll for ever through an endless day."