Poems (Blake)/December

by Mary Elizabeth Blake

For works with similar titles, see December.

DECEMBER.

Chill the night wind moans and sighs,
On the sward the stubble dies;
Slow across the meadows rank
Float the cloud-rifts grim and dank;
On the hill-side, bare and brown,
Twilight shadows gather down,
         'Tis December.

Stark and gaunt the naked trees
Wrestle with the wrestling breeze,
While beneath, at every breath,
Dead leaves hold a dance of death;
But the pine-trees' sighing grace
Greenly decks the barren place,
         In December.

Chirp of bird nor hum of bee
Breaks across the barren lea;
Only silence, cold and drear,
Nestles closely far and near,
While in cloak of russet gray,
Nature hides her bloom away
         With December.

Yet we know that, sleeping sound,
Life is waiting underground;
Till beneath his April skies
God shall bid it once more rise,
Warmth and light and beauty rest,
Hushed and calm, upon the breast
         Of December.

So, though sometime winter skies
Hide the summer from our eyes,
Taking from its old time place
Some dear form of love and grace,
We can wait, content to bear
Barren fields and frosted air,
         Through December;

We can wait, till some sweet dawn
Finds the shadows backward drawn,
And beneath its rosy light
May time flushes, warm and bright,
Bring again the bloom that fled
When the earth lay cold and dead
         In December.