THROUGH a dumb-shifting veil of snow I mark the trees. The chestnuts bare, That reach black fingers up the air; The beeches where, high branch and low, The leaves still hang in russet ranks; The oaks, whose leaves are scanter, more Phantasmal-brown, mere ghosts of yore; The elms, of shapelier tops and flanks. And then the pines; sole guests in green The winter does vouchsafe; they stand Sedately, dropping from their hand The pungent cones; dark, dark, I ween, Their thoughts, and deep and manifold. The winter grass seems doubly sere Beneath their vital boughs that fear No frost, that changeless front the cold. These stately creatures all I view As through an opal dimly; then, Illimitable, mute to men, Above, a sky of hodden gray That lures the eye past every tree, Into a tranced immensity. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OVER THE HILL TO THE POOR-HOUSE by WILLIAM MCKENDREE CARLETON FORGIVENESS by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES RETREAT by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON MIDNIGHT ON THE GREAT WESTERN by THOMAS HARDY THE MARYLAND BATTALION [AUGUST 27, 1776] by JOHN WILLIAMSON PALMER |