Winter Uplands

The frost that stings like fire upon my cheek, The loneliness of this forsaken ground, The long white drift upon whose powdered peak I sit in the great silence as one bound; The rippled sheet of snow where the wind blew Across the open fields for miles ahead; The far-off city towered and roofed in blue A tender line upon the western red; The stars that singly, then in flocks appear, Like jets of silver from the violet dome, So wonderful, so many and so near, And then the golden moon to light me home-- The crunching snowshoes and the stinging air, And silence, frost, and beauty everywhere.