Classic Poem

The wind went by in buffeting gusts that grew
And lulled and gathered. In the town below
It piled the drifts and drove the powdered snow
In sheets from the roof-edges. Dim clouds flew
All day across the silvery mist-veiled blue,
And far away between the dark pine-patches
The sun shone out and dimmed again by snatches,
And swept the foothills with long gleams, and threw
A blind white glare upon the buried plain.
Toward night there came a rush of clouds with rain
And sleet driving, and then all passed, and now
Clouds, wind and sunshine, all have sunk to rest
Slowly athwart the midnight's eastern brow,
The Herdsman mounts: Orion spans the west.