Poetry Revisited: Midwinter Thaw by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

Midwinter Thaw

(from Songs of the Common Day and AVE!: 1893)

How shrink the snows upon this upland field,
          Under the dove-grey dome of brooding noon!
          They shrink with soft reluctant shocks, and soon
In sad brown ranks the furrows lie revealed.
From radiant cisterns of the frost unsealed
          Now wakes through all the air a watery rune—
          The babble of a million brooks atune,
In fairy conduits of blue ice concealed.

Noisy with crows, the wind-break on the hill
          Counts o'er its buds for summer. In the air
Some shy foreteller prophesies with skill—
          Some voyaging ghost of bird, some effluence rare;
And the stall-wearied cattle dream their fill
          Of deep June pastures where the pools are fair.

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts (1860-1943)
Canadian poet and writer