Classic Poem

As slowly on a mountain slope toward spring
The soft snows gather week by week, and charge
The peaks and slanted ridges smooth and large
With drifts that hang light-poised and glistening:
Then sharply on the hidden key by chance
An echo strikes, and like a storm unpinned,
Down from a hundred ledges light as wind,
Loosens and shouts the thundering avalanche.
So in the soul our passions year by year
By the cool winds of custom banked and rolled,
Gather and deftly balance, and hang clear;
Then on the inner master-chord one day
Some fateful shock intrudes, and all gives way
In wild descent and ruin manifold.