EASTER WINTER by EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

COLD -- cold -- the very sun looks cold,
With those thin rays of chilly gold
Laid on that gap of bluish sky
That glazes like a dying eye.

The naked trees are shivering,
Each cramped and bare branch quivering,
Cutting the bleak wind into blades,
Whose edge to brain and bone invades.

That hard ground seems to ache, all day,
Even for a sheet of snow, to lay
Upon its icy feet and knees,
Stretched stiffly there to freeze and freeze.

And yon shrunk mortal -- what's within
That nipped and winter-shriveled skin?
The pinched face drawn in peevish lines,
The voice that through his blue lips whines, --

The frost has got within, you see, --
Left but a selfish me and me:
The heart is chilled, its nerves are numb,
And love has long been frozen dumb.

Ah, give me back the clime I know,
Where all the year geraniums blow,
And hyacinth-buds bloom white for snow;

Where hearts beat warm with life's delight,
Through radiant winter's sunshine bright,
And summer's starry deeps of night;

Where man may let earth's beauty thaw
The wintry creed which Calvin saw,
That God is only Power and Law;

And out of Nature's Bible prove,
That here below as there above
Our Maker -- Father -- God -- is Love.

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