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 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
139
WINTER SONG.
The high-piled cloud drifts on as in scorn
Like a ghost, half pining, half stately,
Or a white ice-island in silence borne
O'er seas congeal'd but lately.
Like a ghost, half pining, half stately,
Or a white ice-island in silence borne
O'er seas congeal'd but lately.
With nose to the ground like a wilder'd hound
O'er wood-leaves yellow and sodden
On races the wind but cannot find
One sweet track where Spring hath trodden.
O'er wood-leaves yellow and sodden
On races the wind but cannot find
One sweet track where Spring hath trodden.
The moor is black; with frosty rime
The wither'd brier is beaded;
The sluggard Spring hath o'erslept her time,
The Spring that was never more needed.
The wither'd brier is beaded;
The sluggard Spring hath o'erslept her time,
The Spring that was never more needed.
What says the oak-leaf in the night-cold noon,
And the beech-stock scoffing and surly?
‘Who comes too soon is a witless loon
Like the clown that is up too early.’
And the beech-stock scoffing and surly?
‘Who comes too soon is a witless loon
Like the clown that is up too early.’
But the moss grows fair when the trees are bare,
The dumb year finds a pillow there;
And beside it the fern with its green crown saith
‘Best bloometh the Hope that is rooted in death.’
The dumb year finds a pillow there;
And beside it the fern with its green crown saith
‘Best bloometh the Hope that is rooted in death.’
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |