Nightfallen Snow

THESE nights of snow are loving to the air
As the still mother of a grieving boy;
For so they fill the air with soft concern,
Imponderable, irresistible,
And draw the numbing hardness slowly out,
And slowly weave a gradual sweetness in;
So freely on its harsh and hungry gloom
They spend the last calm silver penny of love.

O perfect strength of soft unstrenuous snow!
O mouth of beauty whispering in the night!
Æolian snow, that thrills against the wind,
That drifts on hidden grace, and lights it up
With shreds of many rainbows blended white!
O wild and revolutionary snow
That tosses utter newness round the world,
And lays it on the nations in their sleep!