THE weather is sharp, But the girls are unmoved: One wakes from a harp, The next from a viol A strain that I loved When life was no trial. The tripletime beat Bounds forth on the snow, But the spry springing feet Of a century ago, And the arms that enlaced As the couples embraced, Are silent old bones Under graying gravestones. The snow-feathers sail Across the harp-strings, Whose throbbing threads wail Like love-satiate things. Each lyre's grimy mien, With its rout-raising tune, Against the new white Of the flake-laden noon, Is incongruous to sight, Hinting years they have seen Of revel at night Ere these damsels became Possessed of their frame. O bygone whirls, heys, Crotchets, quavers, the same That were danced in the days Of grim Bonaparte's fame, Or even by the toes Of the fair Antoinette, -- Yea, old notes like those Here are living on yet! -- But of their fame and fashion How little these know Who strum without passion For pence, in the snow! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HOUSEKEEPER by ROBERT FROST THE DAFT DAYS by ROBERT FERGUSSON THE COMMON LOT by JAMES MONTGOMERY TO SWEET MEAT, SOUR SAUCE; AN IMITATION OF THEOCRITUS OR ANACREON by PHILIP AYRES NEWS OF THE WORLD: 2 by GEORGE BARKER A YEOMAN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN UNDER THE PINES by ARTHUR STANLEY BOURINOT TO A LADY WHO HAD LOST A RELATIVE by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD |