Classic Poem

Sad silent flakes of snow on lakes
Descend.
There is of white inblent with might
No end.

One desert sheet of ice and sleet
Is seen;
A frozen pond; a moor beyond
Once green.

A road of ruts, two wooden huts,
A mill;
Beyond the meers, thro' darkness, peers
A hill.

The dorf bells boom, thro' ashy gloom
The time,
O'er still abodes, o'er dreary roads
Of rime.

No moon, no star; the dawn is far;
All sleep,
Save mental pain and grief again
That weep.

The grays of shade meet grays of glade,
All's dark;
Of watch-dogs near, I trembling hear
The bark.

Out from the town the road adown
There lies,
A form that lags in scanty rags
And dies.

The flakes still fall and cover all
White, white —
No aid is by, unpitying sky
Is Night!

Down upon brooks, on forest nooks,
On glens;
Down on the mounds and freezing grounds
On fens.

Falleth the snow, persistent, slow
And sad;
Naught to keep warm that helpless form,
Grief-mad!

Footprints still show thro' banks of snow
His tread;
Long did he wait, we are too late,
He's dead.

See the flakes fall down upon all
So slow;
See the flakes crowd forming his shroud