Winter Solstice

When the land is white with snow
Something chills the moonline scene,
Cold so strange no mercury
Apprehends it by degree,
As if feathered fear should go
Like a condor wing between 
Heaven and earth; and all of time
Lay defined in whitest rime.
And always the wind comes on to blow.

Let the blackguard wind affright
Fox and owl that wake at night.
Should it rouse a sleeping man
Though it shrinks his bones to hear
How it shrills the solstice air
Let him turn to sleep again,
Turn to peace, remembering
That the twice-divided year
Is quartered toward the spring.

The Season of Flesh ©1955