Now winter downs the dying of the year,
\nAnd night is all a settlement of snow;
\nFrom the soft street the rooms of houses show
\nA gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
\nLike frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
\nAnd still allows some stirring down within.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve known the wind by water banks to shake
\nThe late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
\nAnd held in ice as dancers in a spell
\nFluttered all winter long into a lake;
\nGraved on the dark in gestures of descent,
\nThey seemed their own most perfect monument.<\/p>\n
There was perfection in the death of ferns
\nWhich laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
\nA million years. Great mammoths overthrown
\nComposedly have made their long sojourns,
\nLike palaces of patience, in the gray
\nAnd changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii<\/p>\n
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
\nBut slept the deeper as the ashes rose
\nAnd found the people incomplete, and froze
\nThe random hands, the loose unready eyes
\nOf men expecting yet another sun
\nTo do the shapely thing they had not done.<\/p>\n
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
\nWe fray into the future, rarely wrought
\nSave in the tapestries of afterthought.
\nMore time, more time. Barrages of applause
\nCome muffled from a buried radio.
\nThe New-year bells are wrangling with the snow. <\/p>\n
\u2013 Richard Wilbur<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now winter downs the dying of the year, And night is all a settlement of snow; From the soft street the rooms of houses show A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere, Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin And still allows some stirring down within. I\u2019ve known the wind by water banks to shake The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-114639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\n