When warm days come in the middle of winter You know that the year is remembering its youth. Cracks sound loud in the ice -- to splinter Your fear lest the stream is stilled past ruth. Stirred by the thrill of their reassurance You look at a birch to see if a bud Is saying the same thing under the bark; It seems that you could not have understood. You go home thinking about it -- and burn An extra log on the fire that night. You take down a book -- a poet -- and learn Of the wild swan's call on her homing flight. You go to bed, and your eyes close; But the dark is green with a sense of life Surging back to the frozen world; And you dream of a faun's, or wood-nymph's, fife. |