Gone are the loved ones, gone, Who gave the earth its dole! As on my shoulder age Places a gentle stole It cannot stop the slow Wintering of the soul.
Warm was the blood once, warm! Now as I walk alone, It shudders in the vein And trembles on the bone, While all the loved ones wait To claim me as their own.
An elderly speaker looks back on a life that has slowly emptied of the people who gave it warmth. The loved ones are gone, and old age settles on the speaker's shoulders like a "gentle stole," a soft wrap that sounds comforting but can't hold back what the title names: the "wintering of the soul." The seasons here stand in for the stages of a life, with the speaker's inner world growing colder and quieter.
In the second stanza the cold becomes physical. The blood that was once warm now "shudders" in the veins and "trembles on the bone," so the body itself feels the loneliness. Yet the ending is oddly tender rather than bleak. The dead are not simply absent; they "wait to claim me as their own." Death seems less a threat than a reunion. The mood is hushed, sorrowful, and resigned, with a quiet note of belonging at the very end.