WINTER forests mutely standing <br />Naked on your bed of snow, <br />Wide your knotted arms expanding <br />To the biting winds that blow, <br />Nought ye heed of storm or stress, <br />Stubborn, silent, passionless. <br /> <br />Buried is each woodland treasure, <br />Gone the leaves and mossy rills, <br />Gone the birds that filled with pleasure <br />All the valleys and the hills; <br />Ye alone of all that host <br />Stand like soldiers at your post. <br /> <br />Grand old trees, the words ye mutter, <br />Nodding in the frosty wind, <br />Wake some thoughts I cannot utter, <br />But which haunt the heart and mind, <br />With a meaning, strange and deep, <br />As of visions seen in sleep. <br /> <br />Something in my inmost thinking <br />Tells me I am one with you, <br />For a subtle bond is linking <br />Nature's offspring through and through, <br />And your spirit like a flood <br />Stirs the pulses of my blood. <br /> <br />While I linger here and listen <br />To the crackling boughs above, <br />Hung with icicles that glisten <br />As if kindling into love, <br />Human heart and soul unite <br />With your majesty and might. <br /> <br />Horizontal, rich with glory, <br />Through the boughs the red sun's rays <br />Clothe you as some grand life-story <br />Robes an aged man with praise, <br />When, before his setting sun, <br />Men recount what he has done. <br /> <br />But the light is swiftly fading, <br />And the wind is icy cold, <br />And a mist the moon is shading, <br />Pallid in the western gold; <br />In the night-winds still ye nod, <br />Sentinels of Nature's God. <br /> <br />Now with laggard steps returning <br />To the world from whence I came, <br />Leave I all the great West burning <br />With the day that died in flame, . <br />And the stars, with silver ray, <br />Light me on my homeward way.<br /><br />Frederick George Scott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-winter-woods/
