Above the lifeless pools the mist films swim,
On the lowlands where sedges chaff and nod;
The withered fringes of the golden-rod
Hang frayed and formless at the quarry’s rim.
Filled with the wine of sunset to the brim,
These limestone pits are cups for the night god,
Set for his lips when he strays hither, shod
With shadows, all the stars following him.
And as gloom grows and deepens like a psalm,
This broken field which summer has passed by
Has caught the ultimate lethean calm,
The fabulous quiet of far Thessaly,
And though the land has lost the bloom and balm,
Nature is all content in liberty.
TO WINTER
Come, O thou conqueror of the flying year;
Come from thy fastness of the Arctic suns;
Mass on the purple waste and wide frontier
Thy wanish hosts and silver clarions.
Then heap this sombre shoulder of the world
With shifting bastions; let thy storm winds blare;
Drift wide thy pallid gonfalon unfurled;
And arm with daggers all the desperate air.
These are but raids in dreams, and friendly brawls;
Thou art a gentle giant that half sleeps,
And blusters grandly to his frozen thralls,
The more to charm them with the wealth he keeps:
We hardly hear thy bluff and hearty word,
When over the first flower sings the first bird.
TO WINTER
Come, O thou season of intense repose;
Come with thy lidded eyes and crystal breath;
Come gently with thy soft release of snows;
And bring thy few short months of tender death.