Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FROZEN FIRE, by FLORIS CLARK MCLAREN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FROZEN FIRE, by                    
First Line: The air is full of diamond dust tonight
Last Line: How bitter black that trail to town!
Subject(s): Frost


I

The air is full of diamond dust tonight,
Cold glittering sparks between us and the snow:
The hills are ragged etchings, black and white, pointed with stars;
The crowding spruces go,
A still black army, down to the curving shore.
The frost lights glitter on every twig and brier
Till we set intruding feet on the jewelled floor
And shatter the cranberry bushes' frozen fire.

II

The still cold sharpens as the sun goes down;
The frost-fog thickens;
Plumes of white smoke stand
Straight up from every chimney.
Near at hand
A husky lifts a wailing quivering cry;
The low hills hold the sound
Answered, repeated, till from all around
The husky chorus swells to the winter sky.

III

Against the blue of spruces, and the grey
Of bare-boughed poplar, suddenly
As though a snowdrift burst in scattering fragments,
Ptarmigan rise with heavy whir of wings,
Show for a moment clear among the branches,
The disappear,
White lost on white again.

IV

The northern sky
Is pale transparent green
Where one lost star
Has climbed the snowy peak, to see
The world.

V

No whisper stirs the valley
Where blue dusk already lies;
But where that sunset-reddened tusk
Stabs the cold skies,
The air is lashed and torn,
As great winds blow
Across the peak, to lift the frozen snow
In gleaming haze,
Till streaming snow plumes fly
Above the valley in the sunset sky.

VI

The hills are changed today,
The white mist shows
Ravines unseen before.
The bare peaks stand
Separate; as though last night
They moved apart, and pausing now
Exchange slow stare for stare,
Like grey old men
With ragged shawls tight-drawn.

VII

The pines stand dark against the sky,
Northern Lights are streaming high,
Far along the snowy trail
Sounds the prowling wolf-pack's wail;
Cold and swift the night comes down:
How bitter black that trail to town!





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