Poems (Bibesco)/IV Winter

by Elizabeth Bibesco

IV WINTER

Inviolate winter, cold and still and white,
Give me a peace, that knows not joy or pain;
Banish the spring; let love call out in vain
For her dread toll of torment and delight.

Let no sweet warmth thaw me to life again;
Let not the darkness splinter into light;
Give me a dreamless sleep, a mornless night,
A silent earth that knows not sun or rain.

Defeat the tingling urgency of spring,
That wracks the earth with torture and desire,
Planting each breeze with fever and with fire,
Wantonly stirring life in everything.

Winter, incurious, aloof, apart,
You rape no secret and you tell no story.
Wrapped in your shroud I'll scorn the summer's glory
Of burning flowers, that flaunt death at their heart.

You lay a veil over the tired eyes
Of earth. Unsmiling and without a word
You draw the curtain, and you sheath the sword
Hopeless and fearless, passionless and wise.

You have no pain to spend, nor hope to borrow,
In whom both past and future miss their way.
Nor shall we grudge it that you steal to-morrow,
Who equally have stolen yesterday.