THE beech is bare, and bare the ash, The thickets white below; The fir-tree scowls with hoar moustache, He cannot sing for snow. The body-guard of veteran pines, A grim battalion, stands; They ground their arms, in ordered lines, For Winter so commands. The waves are dumb along the shore The river's pulse is still; The north-wind's bugle blows no more Reveille from the hill. The rustling sift of falling snow, The muffled crush of leaves, These are the sounds suppressed, that show How much the forest grieves; But, as the blind and vacant Day Crawls to his ashy bed, I hear dull echoes far away, Like drums above the dead. Sigh with me, Pine that never changed! Thou wear'st the Summer's hue; Her other loves are all estranged, But thou and I are true! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A FAIR BEGGAR by PHILIP AYRES A SONG TO A FAIR YOUNG LADY GOING OUT OF TOWN IN THE SPRING by JOHN DRYDEN INTO BATTLE by JULIAN GRENFELL HEAVEN by NANCY WOODBURY PRIEST STELLA'S BIRTHDAY, 1720 by JONATHAN SWIFT THE BASE OF ALL METAPHYSICS by WALT WHITMAN IN SCHOOL-DAYS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |