Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.

In Winter

William Struthers

RUDE, keen, ah! cruel sweeps the winter wind!

No pity has it for these naked boughs.

Look! how round shrinking twigs it doth carouse;

The while its echoes, bugle-shrill, are dinned

Across the land, whose energies lie pinned

Beneath its swoop, and which, with sleet-seamed brows,

Unto the blast, like some bond-creature, bows,

Or like a wretch who iterates, “I ’ve sinned!”

Yet desolation worse than winter’s dearth

O’erwhelms a soul that cowereth unto Fate,

And will not eyes uplift, nor spurn the earth,

Nor for the springtide with endurance wait,

Nor disbelieve a lie that slays its mirth,

But stands dumb, deaf and sightless nigh Love’s gate!