Snow-Flakes (Birds Of Passage Flight The Second)

Out of the bosom of the Air

    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

          Silent, and soft, and slow

          Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

    In the white countenance confession

          The troubled sky reveals

          The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

          Now whispered and revealed

          To wood and field.