And stream beneath their curtain are em-
braced ; 
They drive and beat and hiss, 
Till their cold maiden kiss 
Touches the lake’s intolerable waste, 
And from the wave is born 
A maiden like the morn, 
In sudden foam, an Aphrodite chaste, 
Clean as the cold wind blown 
From each abyss of stone, 
Where the north whirlpool rushes down with 
wreckage interlaced. 
 
Where on the bank I stand 
In this gray barren land 
Of winter, and the doubtful glint of spring, 
If on the hills there glow 
Through the thick mist of snow 
Sunshine from westward in the evening ; 
While in a dell appear 
Violets and snowdrops clear, 
Buds of the larch, and swallows on the wing, 
Till once again the storm 
 
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