WHITE SWORD by WINIFRED ADAMS BURR

Oh, silence your levity,
Still your mirth;
Hear how the deep frosts
Groan in the earth

While taproots stir
In their sleep and moan,
And bright ice lies
In the brook like stone.

Now a frozen frenzy
Of mortal cold
Goes clutching at creatures
Alone on the wold,

Who seek in a spume
Of windy welter
Some moonless hollow
That might be shelter

From the white sword of death.
O skies be kind
And temper your snows
To the stag and the hind;

And hide in the covert
Of your dark arms,
O trees, all the little ones
Safe from alarms;

For Something is brooding
As heavy as sin
Over the wastelands
And would come in

But for this sturdy latch.
God only knows
How warm blood can shelter
In drifting snows!

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