rattling,

 GREY SYMPHONY I Up on the hillside a long row of larches Shake from their grizzled Beards the vestiges of rain, From grey-blue melting ice-slabs 'neath their arches The spring goes up again. Writhing, exuding, Up-steaming, streaming, The earth is breathing to the sky Wet clouds of spring. Dim rosy fans, the trees As they flick to and fro, Seem driving greyish vapour Over the snow. The sky remodulates itself From violet-grey to blue, Under the upturned eaves of the blue larches The sun looks through. Now with the heat of the sun The grey-blue ice-slabs quiver, They slide in muddy trickles Towards the river. Up on the hillside between the long row of larches Fume up from south pale clouds that bear the rain; In pearl and violet arches They break and shape again. II I have seen in the evening The greyish-violet clouds Roll wearily back from northward To the place whence first they came. One or two orange lamps burnt low Against deep purple hills—  The wind was hurrying, bundling them together, The pines awoke to sing The song of the snow buzzing and screaming On its one string. I have seen within my heart Crocuses, purple and gold, Drop cold and dull and colourless Beneath the snow. One or two orange lamps burnt low, Vain memories. The wind has driven me too many winters, My songs are snowflakes whirling about my breast. I will wrap my frozen and bitter songs about me, In one grey drift, and rest. III Fluttering and soft the snow Flings outward, swirls and settles, But when I try to seize it, The wind tears it away. Through poised green platforms of enormous pines, I see far hilltops pushing up blue roofs. Snow comes, And hums Through the woof Of the lower branches. It skips and dances: It drops in sluggish folds Of grey, To where the frozen rhododendron bushes With lower air-gusts play, And the earth hushes Its movement. Fluttering and soft the snow is blent In long loose spirals with my dream. It is all I have, the snow, And I know That when I chase it, it will fly from me; Beyond the lifeless green, Beyond the low blue hills, Beyond the pale straw-coloured glare, Down in the west It goes; Straight southward where the purple-orange flare Of sunset flows, And into the blackened heart of my last rose Pours its despair. Fluttering, soft, and dim Regrets that skip and skim Grey in the grey twilight; Slim and weary whirls the snow, And where it goes I too shall go. IV Of my long nights afar in alien cities I have remembered only this: They were black scarves all dusted over with silver, In which I wrapped my dreams; They were black screens on which I made those pictures That faded out next day. Youth without glory, manhood one mad struggle, Maturity a battle 

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