Thou knowest it were best to yield to save thy might from falling;
Thou knowest I am come to drape the porch of Summer’s palace.
Thy victims, harried on the hills and murdered in the valleys,
Awake to life, to happy life, at my soft song’s recalling.
Then Winter gave in.
The storm flew north over the mountains with a howl; and it stopped snowing. The river returned to its bed. Now and again there was a crash in the forest, when a branch that had been struck by lightning fell to the ground. Otherwise all was still.
And then it began to thaw.
The snow had often sparkled in the sun and rejoiced, but that was a different sun from the one that now stared down upon it. The sun now riding in the sky disliked the snow and the snow disliked the sun.
“What on earth do you want here?” asked the sun and stared with ever-increasing curiosity.
And the snow felt quite awkward and wished itself miles away. It melted up above till great holes came; and it melted down below till it suddenly collapsed and turned to nothing, more or less. Everywhere underneath it, the water ran in rills: through the wood, down the hillside, over the meadow, out in the river, which carried it patiently to the sea. Everywhere stood puddles of water, large and small; they soaked slowly into the ground, as its frozen crust disappeared by degrees. But sometimes they had to wait, for the ground was hard put to it to drink so much at a time.