December Night

Through all this frozen night there is no sound Save my white footsteps on a whiter ground, No stir up from the meadow, nor the brake Lost in the whitening wind beyond the lake.

How soft the lamps come on, their sudden gold Shining from windows warming up the cold; How pale the trees, how bowed their branches down With loveliness men cannot see in town.

But hush, and listen! Above this stretch of white, This swirl of snow that blinds me like a light, I hear a slow sound plain and high and far,— The wind’s cold fingers polishing a star.