The Dread Voyage Poems

by William Wilfred Campbell

 

A DECEMBER MORNING

 
BREAKS in the wild and bleak December morn,
      Across shrunk woods and pallid skies like pearl:
      From hooded roofs white, sinuous smoke-wreaths curl
Into the clear, sharp air; great boughs, wind-torn
And storm-dismantled, sway from trunks forlorn.
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      Under stark fences, snow-mists sift and swirl,
And overhead, where night was wont to hurl
Her ghostly drift, white clouds, wind-steered, are borne.

By drifted ways I climb the eastern hills,
      And watch the wind-swayed maples creak and strain;
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      The muffled beeches moan their wintry pain;
While over fields and frosty, silent rills,
The breaking day the great, grey silence fills
      With far-heard voice and stir of life again.