University of Virginia Library

Gray Winter loveth silence. He is old,
And liketh not the sporting of the lambs,
Nor the shrill song of birds. It irketh him
To hear the forest melodies, though still
He giveth license to the ruffian winds,
That, with black foreheads and distended cheeks,
Mutter hoarse thunders on their wrecking path.

He lays his finger on the lip of streams,
And they are ice; and stays the merry foot
Of the slight runlet, as it leapeth down,
Terrace by terrace, from the mountain's head.
He silenceth the purling of the brook,
That told its tale in gentle summer's ear
All the day long reproachless, and doth bid
Sharp frosts chastise and chain it, till it shrink
Abash'd away.
He sits with wrinkled face,
Like some old grandsire, ill at ease, who shuts
The noisy trooping of the children out,
And drawing nearer to the pleasant fire,
Doth settle on his head the velvet cap,
And bless his stars for quiet once again.
Stern winter drives the truant fountain back
To the dark caverns of the imprisoning earth,
And deadeneth with his drifted snows the sound
Of wheel and foot-tramp.
Thus it is with man,
When the chill winter of his life draws on.
The ear doth loathe the sounds that erst it loved,
Or, like some moody hermit, bar the door,
Though sweetest tones solicit it in vain.
The eye grows weary of the tarnish'd scenes
And old wind-shaken tapestries of time,
While all the languid senses antedate
The Sabbath of the tomb.
The echoing round
Of giddy pleasures, where his heart in youth
Disported eagerly, the rushing tread
Of the great, gorgeous world, are nought to him,
Who, as he journeyeth to a clime unknown,
Would to the skirts of holy silence cling,
And let all sounds and symphonies of earth
Fall like a faded vestment from the soul.