WINTER
Know ye my children? From the old strong breast
Not weary yet of life’s grey change, not drawn
Into the utter peace of death, the rest
Of the dim hour that lingers ere the dawn,
Spring these that laugh upon thee. In the snow
See forests bare and gaunt,
Where wingéd whispers haunt,
Lighting the dull sky with a slumberous glow;
Hear the strange sounds of winter chaunt;
Feel the keen wisdom of the winter thrill
Young hearts with passionate foretaste
Of death in some wild waste
Of deserts darkening at some wild god’s will,
Of frozen steppes awaiting the repose
That only death discovers, never sleep.
My misery is this
That I must wake to childhood gold and rose,
And maidenhood, and wifehood, and still keep
Bound on Life’s fatal wheel—revolving bliss.
O that worn wisdom and the age of sorrow
Could learn its bitter lesson, and depart —
Into some nightfall guiltless of a morrow,
Into some cave’s unprofitable heart
Beyond this curse of birth! O that dread night
Could come and cover all,
Even itself to fall
To some abyss past resurrection’s might!
For the old whispers of my old life call
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