

THE POETRY OF FLOWE 31 
For Winter came: the wind was his 
One ths finger was on his lip: 
He had torn the cataracts from the 
1 
And they clank’d at his gi 

i 


His breath was a chain which, witho ut & sound, || 




The earth, and the air, and the water bound; 
He came, fiercely dri in his « hatiot eee 
By the tenfold bla e arctic zone. 
Then the weeds w re forme of living death, 
Fled from the frosts : whe rth be eneath 
Their decay and sudden fl 
Was but like the vanishing of a Paes } 


fe nd under the roots of the sensitive plan 
‘he moles and the dormice die sal for w oe , | 
And the birds dropp’d stiff from the sven air, | 
And were caught in the branches naked and bare, 
First there came down a thawing rain, 
And its dull drops froze o Le the boughs again, 
Then there steam’d up a freezing dew 
Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew; 
And a northern whirls ee wandering about 
Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child ait 
Shook the boughs thus laden and heavy and stiff 
And snapp’d them off with his rigid griff. 

