All, save the distant sea’s uncertain sound,
Or here and there the gun, whose loud report 90
Proclaims to man that Death is but his sport.
And then the wintry winds begin to blow;
Then fall the flaky stars of gathering snow;
When on the thorn the ripening sloe, yet blue,
Takes the bright varnish of the morning dew;
The aged moss grows brittle on the pale;
The dry boughs splinter in the windy gale;
And every changing season of the year