THE sky is dim and silent; lost are mirth, Colour, and motion; e'en the winds are dumb, Save for a constant, faint, unchanging hum, That seems the voice of the despairing earth The birds are pining in this wintry dearth; The trees, that rang with carols frolicsome, Show dead black branches, fringed with white, whence come No whispered hopes of any future birth. And yet to me, the season still is fair, Though things of joy so sad and cold become; Majestic stand the trunks and branches bare, Their lace-like twigs half-seen, half-hid with snow: One frost-bit flower, a red chrysanthemum Tells of the hidden store of life below. |