EXSPES
Why sing of suns you cannot see, in vain? --
Here where dull day from night scarce diff'rent pales,
And fog as grisly as a dead man's nails
Freezes opaquely at the window pane;
Here where the laughter and the living eye
Of dormant water, blind and mute beneath
The black ice-shell, like spirits after death
Steal unadmired their passage. Down the sky
Like fruitless seed of seasons overblown,
The fluff-winged atomies tumble and amass,
Muffling the pale and sapless winter grass
Under a clammy still oblivion.
Too slight to fall, we drift with every phase,
We start and scuffle, playthings of the air;
Then with a shuddering whisper of despair
Go out like snowflakes in a woodman's blaze.
Why sing of suns you cannot see, in vain? --
Here where dull day from night scarce diff'rent pales,
And fog as grisly as a dead man's nails
Freezes opaquely at the window pane;
Here where the laughter and the living eye
Of dormant water, blind and mute beneath
The black ice-shell, like spirits after death
Steal unadmired their passage. Down the sky
Like fruitless seed of seasons overblown,
The fluff-winged atomies tumble and amass,
Muffling the pale and sapless winter grass
Under a clammy still oblivion.
Too slight to fall, we drift with every phase,
We start and scuffle, playthings of the air;
Then with a shuddering whisper of despair
Go out like snowflakes in a woodman's blaze.