 | [February, in Through the Year with Poets] February |  |
110
EXPECTATION.
Wide wintry fields left bare to skies unkind,Brown stubble, yellow stream and thin gray grass,
Soiled streaks of snow on yonder hillside pass,
A landscape colorless, a wet chill wind,
Clear tinkle of slow-dropping icicles,
Full-throated brooks whose querulous brawling swells
To noise unwonted, roughened with the thaw.
Thick February mists cling heavily
To the dead earth and to each leafless tree,
And closer down upon the hilltops draw,
Dull forecasts there of bright, sure-coming spring;
Yet the heart gathers hope and strange delight
From this the dear, unlovely, wished-for sight
Of leaden-misted twilights lengthening.
Beyond the moist, mirk curtain weighing down,
From dark gray heaven unto dark earth brown,
Youth sees afar, with close-drawn eyelids, May,
Long vistas of all beauty, golden dells,
And clouds wherein the very sunshine dwells;
And that rich promise shortens the short day.
Emma Lazarus.
| [February, in Through the Year with Poets] February | |