O SHEPARD, out upon the snow, What lambs are newly born?. . . I see his long, long shadow go Across the fields of morn. Ere dawn the snow-light in the room Awoke me, and I saw A pallid earth, a cloudy gloom, A shape that stirred my awe. I know the clear untrodden snows That hide the Winter wheat; The greyer fields wherein he goes Are grey with pitting feet. He feels not how I watch him creep, He thinks he is alone; He searches for the heavy sheep Each windward hedge of stone. I keep my bed in weariness When workers have gone forth, I watch that silent man grow less Into the snow-packed North; And men have died in this old room Through thrice a hundred years Who saw the shepherd in the gloom, The shape that never nears. Briefly I watch; but then I go, The room will know me not; Yet from my window, o'er the snow, When I am well forgot Shall unknown men look forth to scan Each far, unchanging tree, And see a dark and lonely man Still creeping agelessly. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH by ROBERT BROWNING WERE I BUT HIS OWN WIFE by ELLEN MARY PATRICK DOWNING AT CASTERBRIDGE FAIR: 6. A WIFE WAITS by THOMAS HARDY SHE CAME AND WENT by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO RUSSIA by CINCINNATUS HEINE MILLER A TRIP TO PARIS AND BELGIUM: 16. ANTWERP TO GHENT by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI SONNET: 109 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE |