A Winters Dawn

Winter's Dawn Window
So bravely the mavis of morning is singing,
Deep Winter has sharpened her notes in the snow,
Where stiffly those tufts under bushes are rattling
In icy-shod breezes which cramp as they blow;
Bright robin is darting from line-post to railing,
A Peter Pan piping distinct in its plea,
He scatters a powdery shower of frosting
Then, head on one side, he is looking at me.
The roadway a moonscape of untrod adventure,
Each garden of glistering marble design,
Block ice on the river lies flat in enigma,
Locked tight to its bridge since late evening's decline;
Still hushed is the white-coated village and holding,
Grey smoke newly rising in fingers of prayer,
And nothing abroad save my feathered entreaters,
Who know they'll have something when I get downstair.

Far over those deep-mantled cypress and birches,
The fields have no shaping, nor pathway, nor track,
Hump shoulders of hillocks beneath their rime blankets,
A mere indication of where to turn back;
But nearer, that earliest of gardener's greeting,
When here, out of habit, I look on the day,
Now changed overnight into winsome attraction,
A parkland no more..but a coral display.

Cold loveliness, brittled in shawls of fine laces,
White-starched for a Wintertide wedding elite,
If bells boldly called her, this porcelain fairy
No doubt would be rising, her trousseau complete!
Ghost gulls wheel from nowhere, no magpies a'chatter
Tell loudly the message that Mam is astir..
But sharp is his piping, and grander than any,
Bold robin asserting which crumbs he'd prefer.

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