University of Virginia Library


97

TO M. C., ON HER VISIT TO LONDON IN WINTER.

Shut are the summer's golden gates, I said,
Gone are the life and light, and gone the bloom;
Now turn we sadly to the winter's gloom,
Pale, silent lands beneath our feet to tread,
Cold wastes of gray sky stretching overhead.
But, while afar we saw the winter loom,
Fate came between us and the coming doom;
Summer he claimed, but gave us thee, instead.
Then fairer glowed the earth than in June days,
Sweet sounds, more sweet than sounds of summer be,
Hearing your voice, we heard. The darkest place,
If you but through it passed, grew light as day,
And if again in spring we meet not thee,
Then shall December triumph over May.