THE evanescent wonder of the snow Is round about us, and as in a cloud, -- A vestiture inviolate, -- we walk. Earth seems bereft of song and shorn of sun, A cloistral world. Even the lyric throb Of the rapt brook is like a heart-beat faint. The wood, white architrave on architrave, Is as a temple where the lips of prayer Tremble upon the verge of utterance. Hush! -- in the soul of this great gulf of sleep, This void abysmal, may we not divine The Inscrutable Presence, clothed about with dreams, The Immaculate Vision that is death yet life, For out of death comes life; -- the twain are one! |