Songs of the Winter Days: I

The sky has turned its heart away,
The earth its sorrow found;
The daisies turn from childhood's play,
And creep into the ground.

The earth is black and cold and hard;
Thin films of dry white ice,
Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred,
The children's feet entice.

Dark flows the stream, as if it mourned
The winter in the land;
With idle icicles adorned,
That mill-wheel soon will stand.

But, friends, to say 'tis cold, and part,
Is to let in the cold;
We'll make a summer of the heart,
And laugh at winter old.