Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A WINTER PIECE, by CORA RANDALL FABBRI


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A WINTER PIECE, by                    
First Line: A little while ago
Last Line: "where are my blossoms now?"
Subject(s): Winter


A LITTLE while ago
The radiant Summer, with her azure eyes
And flower-crowned head, had shaken down a snow
Of lovely blossoms, fairer than the Spring,
Till these bare boughs were white and glittering,
And wild, sweet, panting birds stopped here to sing
A little while ago.

As if a passing cloud
Let loose some flakelets from his downy breast,
To hide thy bareness in a dazzling shroud,
O tree, the blossoms fell! More fair than these
Are not foam-flakes that whiten Summer seas,
Frail blossoms drifted by a lang'rous breeze
As from a passing cloud.

Where are these blossoms now?
Answer, wild winds and ghostly Winter, king
Who reigneth with white beard and ice-bound brow.
Alas, alas! poor tree, so gaunt and bare,
Sad skies, cold snows, and silence ev'rywhere;
Only thy mournful whisper stirs the air,
"Where are my blossoms now?" ...

A little while ago
I knew a young child-heart, as free from care,
And pure and perfect as pale fallen snow,
Full of sweet dreams—"Spring buds are never dead,
And Summer follows fast on Summer's tread;
The world is good, and men are true," she said
A little while ago.

This heart is wiser now.
Her dreams are shattered, lightly blown away,
Like Summer blossoms from a Summer bough.
Like thee, O tree, whose buds with Spring are gone,
The heart that lost its dreams with youth's gold dawn
In life's pathetic winter-time must mourn:
"Where are my blossoms now?"





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