Scotland's Winter

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,

The sun looks from the hill

Helmed in his winter casket,

And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky.

The water at the mill

Sounds more hoarse and dull.

The miller's daughter walking by

With frozen fingers soldered to her basket

Seems to be knocking

Upon a hundred leagues of floor

With her light heels, and mocking

Percy and Douglas dead,

And Bruce on his burial bed,

Where he lies white as may

With wars and leprosy,

And all the kings before

This land was kingless,

And all the singers before

This land was songless,

This land that with its dead and living waits the Judgement Day.

But they, the powerless dead,

Listening can hear no more

Than a hard tapping on the floor

A little overhead

Of common heels that do not know

Whence they come or where they go

And are content

With their poor frozen life and shallow banishment.