Winter Days

Now comes the graybeard of the north:   The forests bare their rugged breasts To every wind that wanders forth,   And, in their arms, the lonely nests That housed the birdlings months ago Are egged with flakes of drifted snow. No more the robin pipes his lay   To greet the flushed advance of morn; He sings in valleys far away; His heart is with the south to-day;   He cannot shrill among the corn; For all the hay and corn are down   And garnered; and the withered leaf, Against the branches bare and brown,   Rattles; and all the days are brief. An icy hand is on the land;   The cloudy sky is sad and gray; But through the misty sorrow streams,   Outspreading wide, a golden ray. And on the brook that cuts the plain   A diamond wonder is aglow,   Fairer than that which, long ago, De Rohan staked a name to gain.