The Unloosening

Winter was weary. All his snows were failing--     Still from his stiff grey head he shook the rime     Upon the grasses, bushes and broad hedges,     But all was lost in the new touch of Time.     And the bright-globd hedges were all ruddy,     As though warm sunset glowed perpetual.     The myriad swinging tassels of first hazel,     From purple to pale gold, were swinging all     In the soft wind, no more afraid of Winter.     Nor chaffinch, wren, nor lark was now afraid.     And Winter heard, or (ears too hard of hearing)     Snuffed the South-West that in his cold hair played.     And his hands trembled. Then with voice a-quaver     He called the East Wind, and the black East ran,     Roofing the sky with iron, and in the darkness     Winter crept out and chilled the earth again.     And while men slept the still pools were frozen,     Mosses were white, with ice the long grasses bowed;     The hawthorn buds and the greening honeysuckle     Froze, and the birds were dumb under that cloud.     And men and beasts were dulled, and children even     Less merry, under that low iron dome.     Early the patient rooks and starlings gathered;     Any warm narrow place for men was home.     And Winter laughed, but the third night grew weary,     And slept all heavy, till the East Wind thought him dead.     Then the returning South West in his nostrils     Breathed, and his snows melted. And his head     Uplifting, he saw all the laughing valley,     Heard the unloosened waters leaping down     Broadening over the meadows; saw the sun running     From hill to hill and glittering upon the town.     All day he stared. But his head drooped at evening,     Bent and slow he stumbled into the white     Cavern of a great chalk hill, hedged with tall bushes,     And in its darkness found a darker night     Among the broken cliff and falling water,     Freezing or falling quietly everywhere;     Locked in a long, long sleep, his brain undreaming,     With only water moving anywhere.     Old men at night dreamed that they saw him going,     And looked, and dared not look, lest he should turn.     And young men felt the air beating on their bodies,     And the young women woke from dreams that burn.     And children going through the fields at morning     Saw the unloosened waters leaping down,     And broke the hazel boughs and wore the tassels     Above their eyes--a pale and shaking crown.