Now in the woodlands from the creaking boughs <br />The last sere leaves are loosened and unstrung, <br />Where once the tender honeysuckle clung, <br />And the fond mavis fluted to his spouse. <br />Already dreaming of her winter drowse, <br />And brooding dimly on her unborn young, <br />The dormouse rakes the beechmast, and among <br />The matted roots the moldwarp paws and ploughs. <br />Over the furrows brown and pastures grey <br />The melancholy plovers flap and 'plain; <br />And, along shivering pool and sodden lane, <br />As lower droop the lids of dying day, <br />Like to a disembodied soul in pain, <br />The homeless wind goes wailing all the way.<br /><br />Alfred Austin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-wintry-picture-ii/
