SNOW

No breath of wind, No gleam of sun— Still the white snow Swirls softly down— Twig and bough And blade and thorn All in an icy Quiet, forlorn. Whispering, nestling, Through the air, On sill and stone, Roof—everywhere, It heaps its powdery Crystal flakes, Of every tree A mountain makes: Till pale and faint At shut of day, Stoops from the West One wintry ray. Then, feathered in fire, Where ghosts the moon, A robin shrills His lonely tune; And from her dark-gnarled Yew-tree lair Flits she who had been In hiding there.