The muffled pipe of many a passing bird,

High over hut and hall,

Straining to southward with unresting wing.

[Pg 28]

And then they come with colder feet, and fret

The winds with snow, and tuck the streams to sleep

With icy sheet and gleaming coverlet,

And fill the valleys deep

With curvèd drifts, and a strange music raves

Among the pines, sometimes in wails, and then

In whistled laughter, till affrighted men

Draw close, and into caves

And earthy holes the blind beasts curl and creep.

And so all day above the toiling heads

Of men's poor chimneys, full of impish freaks,

Tearing and twisting in tight-curlèd shreds

The vain unnumbered reeks,

The Winter speeds his fairies forth and mocks

Poor bitten men with laughter icy cold,

Turning the brown of youth to white and old

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