Page:The Poems of Oscar Wilde.pdf/221



is full winter now: the trees are bare,

Save where the cattle huddle from the cold

Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear

The Autumn's gaudy livery whose gold

Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true

To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

From Saturn's cave; a few thin wisps of hay

Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain

Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day

From the low meadows up the narrow lane;

Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep

Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

From the shut stable to the frozen stream

And back again disconsolate, and miss

The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;

And overhead in circling listlessness

The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,

Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack 207