The boughs, the boughs are bare enough But earth has never felt the snow. Frost-furred our ivies are and rough With bills of rime the brambles shew. The hoarse leaves crawl on hissing ground Because the sighing wind is low. But if the rain-blasts be unbound And from dank feathers wring the drops The clogged brook runs with choking sound Kneading the mounded mire that stops His channel under clammy coats Of foliage fallen in the copse. A simple passage of weak notes Is all the winter bird dare try. The bugle moon by daylight floats So glassy white about the sky, So like a berg of hyaline, And pencilled blue so daintily, I never saw her so divine. But through black branches, rarely drest In scarves of silky shot and shine, The webbed and the watery west Where yonder crimson fireball sits Looks laid for feasting and for rest. I see long reefs of violets In beryl-covered fens so dim, A gold-water Pactolus frets Its brindled wharves and yellow brim, The waxen colours weep and run, And slendering to his burning rim Into the flat blue mist the sun Drops out and all our day is done. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A WAR SONG TO ENGLISHMEN by WILLIAM BLAKE THE LAWYER'S WAYS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR IDYLLS OF THE KING: LANCELOT AND ELAINE by ALFRED TENNYSON VERSES WRITTEN ON THE BACK OF AN OLD VISITATION COPY OF ARMS by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE TURN OF THE ROAD by JANE BARLOW TO BEAUTY by ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH |