Or ’neath gaunt aisles of sombre woodlands crooning, Like gray old crones, some sad December song, Or barren trees like aged harpers tuning Their withered instruments, an eerie throng, Bright icicles from each white, branchy beard, Stand waiting for the dying old year’s weird.
So I have roamed with thee, thou grey December, Through all thy sheeted nights and withered days; And dreamed beneath thy chillèd ice and ember, The secret thoughts of Nature’s hidden ways: How under all thy storm and maddened moods, Thou barest her message to the fields and woods.
PREMONITIONS.
In the winter wan and white, When the days grow long and bright, And the sun grows warm and hot In each southward sheltered spot Back of fences, under hills; Then my brain with fancy fills, Then my heart grows young again Through the days that wax and wane.
In the morning when I wake, Something all my heart doth take Captive with a secret thrill Toward the young year’s waking will;
When I feel the sun behind My closed, eastward window blind, Something wells up in my heart, Most of joy and hope a part.
Burns the morning’s warming glow Over wastes of ice and snow; Over spaces chill and bare, Life and love are in the air. With the year that is to be Throbs my heart in sympathy. Springward turns the whole world’s mind, Sleep and death are left behind.
In the hot, glad afternoons, When the whole world melts and swoons In a garment of thin haze Over woods and rude roadways, And the landscape, chill and wan, Softer aspect taketh on; Then my steps to southward turn Where the sloping sun doth burn.