MID-WINTER

All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold;

And through the snow the muffled waters fell;

The day seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell,

Like some old hermit whose last bead is told.

At eve the wind woke, and the snow-clouds rolled

Aside to leave the fierce sky visible;

Harsh as an iron landscape of wan hell

The dark hills hung framed in with gloomy gold.

And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one at

My window wailing: now a little child

Crying outside the door; and now the long

Howl of some starved beast down the flue. I sat

And knew‘ twas Winter with his madman song

Of miseries, whereon he stared and smiled.