Deep lies the snow on wood and field;
Gray stretches overhead the sky;
The streams, their lips of laughter sealed,
In silence wander slowly by.

Earth slumbers, and her dreams,—who knows
But they may sometimes be like ours?
Lyrics of spring in winter's prose
That sing of buds and leaves and flowers;

Dreams of that day when from the south
Comes April, as at first she came,
To hold the bare twig to her mouth
And blow it into fragrant flame.