Page:Poems Curwen.djvu/186

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178
snowflakes.

Snowflakes.
Softly fall the snowflakes light
Robing earth in bridal white:
O'er her bosom bare and brown,
Folding coverings of down;
Spreading slowly, without sound
Carpets o'er the frozen ground;
Hiding Winter's nakedness
'Neath a garb of loveliness.

Softly, softly, still they fall
In the garden, on the wall;
In the churchyard drifting deep
O'er the graves where loved ones sleep;
In the city right among
The noisy, busy, hurrying throng;
In the hamlet, and the town
The little flakes are fluttering down.

Faster, faster, now they come,
Wee white messengers of doom
To the stately ships that ride
Out upon the ocean wide;
Heralds of destruction they,
Obscuring the seamen's way;
Harbingers of coming ill,
To sheep and shepherd on the hill.