36.
The snow is come; upon the higher places,
Among the hills,
To Heaven's blue window-frame, meseems, it traces
White marble sills.
I hear without the tall trees crack and splinter,
With snow opprest,
Bewailing them of heavy-handed Winter,
That stirs their rest.
Yet to the plains the fallen snow brings quiet,
If not increase,
The labouring earth consoling for Life's riot
With palls of peace.
Each year, meseems, snow lingers longer, later,
Upon the peaks;
Each year the Winter's hold grows stronger, straiter,
On days and weeks,
The time foreboding when the world, o'ertaken
With the last sleep,
Shall 'neath the snow-shroud lie nor ever waken
From slumber deep.
As the soul solved is of the stress of passion
By growing old,
So Life seeks shelter from the waste world's fashion
In snow and cold.
As Winter's silver shroud the germs protecteth
Of the new Prime,
So, 'neath the snows of age, the soul expecteth
Its seeding-time.
