And visits all the trees in their retreat,

To hood and mantle that poor shiv’ring folk.

With wintry bloom it fills the harshest grooves

In jagged pine stump fences. Every sound

It hushes to the footstep of a nun.

Sweet Charity! that brightens where it moves,

Inducing darkest bits of churlish ground

To give a radiant answer to the sun.

{46}

{46}

To February

O MASTER-BUILDER, blustering as you go

O

About your giant work, transforming all

The empty woods into a glittering hall,

And making lilac lanes and footpaths grow

As hard as iron under stubborn snow,

Though every fence stand forth a marble wall,

And windy hollows drift to arches tall,

There comes a might that shall your might o’erthrow.

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