And so all day above the toiling heads Of men's poor chimneys, full of impish freaks, Tearing and twisting in tight-curlèd shreds The vain unnumbered reeks, The Winter speeds his fairies forth and mocks Poor bitten men with laughter icy cold, Turning the brown of youth to white and old With hoary-woven locks, And grey men young with roses in their cheeks. And after thaws, when liberal water swells The bursting eaves, he biddeth drip and grow The curly horns of ribbèd icicles In many a beard-like row. In secret moods of mercy and soft dole, Old warpèd wrecks and things of mouldering death That summer scorns and man abandoneth His careful hands console With lawny robes and draperies of snow. And when night comes, his spirits with chill feet, Winged with white mirth and noiseless mockery, Across men's pallid windows peer and fleet, And smiling silverly Draw with mute fingers on the frosted glass Quaint fairy shapes of icèd witcheries, Pale flowers and glinting ferns and frigid trees And meads of mystic grass, Graven in many an austere phantasy. But far away the Winter dreams alone, Rustling among his snow-drifts, and resigns Cold fondling ears to hear the cedars moan In dusky-skirted lines Strange answers of an ancient runic call; Or somewhere watches with his antique eyes, Gray-chill with frosty-lidded reveries, The silvery moonshine fall In misty wedges through his girth of pines. Poor mortals haste and hide away: creep soon Into your icy beds: the embers die; And on your frosted panes the pallid moon Is glimmering brokenly. Mutter faint prayers that spring will come e'erwhile, Scarring with thaws and dripping days and nights The shining majesty of him that smites And slays you with a smile Upon his silvery lips, of glinting mockery. WINTER HUES RECALLED.