A Winter Night 221 



careful how you step ; for in some places the snow 

 has fallen upon a mass of leaves filling a swampy 

 hollow. Above there is a thin crust of snow, but 

 under the leaves the oozy ground is still soft. 



Upon the dark pines the snow has lodged, making 

 the boughs bend downwards. Where the slope 

 becomes a hill the ash stoles and nut-tree bushes 

 are far apart and thinner, so that there are wide 

 white spaces around them. Regaining now the top 

 of the hill where the plain comes to the verge of the 

 wood, there is a clear view down across the ash poles 

 to the withies, the white mere, and the meadows 

 below. Everywhere silence, stillness, sleep. 



In the high trees slumbering creatures ; in the 

 hedgerows, in the bushes, and the withies birds 

 with feathers puffed out, slumbering ; in the banks, 

 under the very ground, dormant animals. A quiet 

 cold that at first does not seem cold because it is so 

 quiet, but which gradually seizes on and stills the sap 

 of plants and the blood of living things. A ruthless 

 frost, still, subtle, and irresistible, that will slay the 

 bird on its perch and weaken the swift hare. 



The most cruel of all things this snow and frost, 

 because of the torture of hunger which the birds must 

 feel even in their sleep. But how beautiful the round 

 full moon, the brilliant light, the white landscape, the 



