Mid-Winter

All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold; And through the snow the muffled waters fell; The day seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell, Like some old hermit whose last bead is told. At eve the wind woke, and the snow clouds rolled Aside to leave the fierce sky visible; Harsh as an iron landscape of wan hell The dark hills hung framed in with gloomy gold. And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one at My window wailing: now a little child Crying outside my door; and now the long Howl of some starved beast down the flue. I sat And knew 'twas Winter with his madman song Of miseries on which he stared and smiled.