Fire Of Snow

Pale fire of snow had lit the dusk for me: Astray with mind half-consciously intent I had not thought the wood so imminent— Pregnant with pine and sombre cypress-tree. Darker than sleep, and mute with mystery Like far-off death, where questing dreams are spent, Their winding caverns deepened as I went Therein, and paused in old expectancy. Pale fire of snow had lit the dusk for me.... But the black stillness held where once the wind Had parted boughs in music, that the gleam Of stars might enter; all was strangely blind, Like midnight thickening 'neath the middle sea— Filled with the silence of a time-slain dream.