Fluttering and soft the snow
Flings outward, swirls and settles,
But when I try to seize it,
The wind tears it away.
Through poised green platforms of enormous pines,
I see far hilltops pushing up blue roofs.
Snow comes,
And hums
Through the woof
Of the lower branches.
It skips and dances:
It drops in sluggish folds
Of grey,
To where the frozen rhododendron bushes
With lower air-gusts play,
And the earth hushes
Its movement.
Fluttering and soft the snow is blent
In long loose spirals with my dream.
It is all I have, the snow,
And I know
That when I chase it, it will fly from me;
Beyond the lifeless green,
Beyond the low blue hills,
Beyond the pale straw-coloured glare,
Down in the west
It goes;
Straight southward where the purple-orange flare
Of sunset flows,
And into the blackened heart of my last rose
Pours its despair.
Fluttering, soft, and dim
Regrets that skip and skim
Grey in the grey twilight;
Slim and weary whirls the snow,
And where it goes I too shall go.