1 For weeks and weeks the autumn world stood still, <br />2 Clothed in the shadow of a smoky haze; <br />3 The fields were dead, the wind had lost its will, <br />4 And all the lands were hushed by wood and hill, <br />5 In those grey, withered days. <br /> <br />6 Behind a mist the blear sun rose and set, <br />7 At night the moon would nestle in a cloud; <br />8 The fisherman, a ghost, did cast his net; <br />9 The lake its shores forgot to chafe and fret, <br />10 And hushed its caverns loud. <br /> <br />11 Far in the smoky woods the birds were mute, <br />12 Save that from blackened tree a jay would scream, <br />13 Or far in swamps the lizard's lonesome lute <br />14 Would pipe in thirst, or by some gnarlèd root <br />15 The tree-toad trilled his dream. <br /> <br />16 From day to day still hushed the season's mood, <br />17 The streams stayed in their runnels shrunk and dry; <br />18 Suns rose aghast by wave and shore and wood, <br />19 And all the world, with ominous silence, stood <br />20 In weird expectancy: <br /> <br />21 When one strange night the sun like blood went down, <br />22 Flooding the heavens in a ruddy hue; <br />23 Red grew the lake, the sere fields parched and brown, <br />24 Red grew the marshes where the creeks stole down, <br />25 But never a wind-breath blew. <br /> <br />26 That night I felt the winter in my veins, <br />27 A joyous tremor of the icy glow; <br />28 And woke to hear the north's wild vibrant strains, <br />29 While far and wide, by withered woods and plains, <br />30 Fast fell the driving snow.<br /><br />William Wilfred Campbell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/how-one-winter-came-in-the-lake-region/
