Keen gleams the wind, and all the ground
Is bare and chapped with bitter cold.
The ruts are iron; fish are found
Encased in ice as in a mold;
The frozen hilltops ache with pain
And shudders tremble down each shy
Deep rootlet burrowing in the plain;—
Now mark the sky.

Softly she pulls a downy veil
Before her clear Medusa face;
This, falling slow, abroad doth trail
Across the wold a feathery trace,
Whereunder soon the moaning earth
Aslumber stretches dreamily,
Forgot both pain and summer's mirth,
Soothed by the sky.