The Still of the Year

Up from the willow-root Subduing agonies leap; The field-mouse and the purple moth Turn over amid their sleep; The icicled rocks aloft Burn amber and blue alway, And trickling and tinkling The snows of the drift decay. Oh, mine is the head must hang And share the immortal pang! Winter or spring is fair; Thaw's hard to bear. Heigho! my heart's sick. Sweet is cherry-time, sweet A shower, a bobolink, And trillium, fain far under Her cloistering leaf to shrink; But here in the vast, unborn, Is the bitterest place to be, Till striving and longing Shall quicken the earth and me. What change inscrutable Is nigh us, we know not well; Gone is the strength to sigh Either to live or die. Heigho! my heart's sick.