Out in a world of death far to the northward lying, <br /> Under the sun and the moon, under the dusk and the day; <br /> Under the glimmer of stars and the purple of sunsets dying, <br /> Wan and waste and white, stretch the great lakes away. <br /> <br /> Never a bud of spring, never a laugh of summer, <br /> Never a dream of love, never a song of bird; <br /> But only the silence and white, the shores that grow chiller and dumber, <br /> Wherever the ice winds sob, and the griefs of winter are heard. <br /> <br /> Crags that are black and wet out of the grey lake looming, <br /> Under the sunset's flush and the pallid, faint glimmer of dawn; <br /> Shadowy, ghost-like shores, where midnight surfs are booming <br /> Thunders of wintry woe over the spaces wan. <br /> <br /> Lands that loom like spectres, whited regions of winter, <br /> Wastes of desolate woods, deserts of water and shore; <br /> A world of winter and death, within these regions who enter, <br /> Lost to summer and life, go to return no more. <br /> <br /> Moons that glimmer above, waters that lie white under, <br /> Miles and miles of lake far out under the night; <br /> Foaming crests of waves, surfs that shoreward thunder, <br /> Shadowy shapes that flee, haunting the spaces white. <br /> <br /> Lonely hidden bays, moon-lit, ice-rimmed, winding, <br /> Fringed by forests and crags, haunted by shadowy shores; <br /> Hushed from the outward strife, where the mighty surf is grinding <br /> Death and hate on the rocks, as sandward and landward it roars.<br /><br />William Wilfred Campbell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-winter-lakes-2/
