January

It freezes: all across a soundless sky

The birds go home. The governing dark's begun.

The steadfast dark that waits not for a sun;

The ultimate dark wherein the race shall die.

Death with his evil finger to his lip

Leers in at human windows, turning spy

To learn the country where his rules shall lie

When he assumes perpetual generalship.

The undefeated enemy, the chill

That shall benumb the voiceful earth at last,

Is master of our moment, and has bound

The viewless wind itself. There is no sound.

It freezes. Every friendly stream is fast.

It freezes, and the graven twigs are still.