Welsh Journals

Snow STILL wonderful is the snow, White wool on each roof-top, Unspotted fleece on the fields Where black birds hop. Each tree has put on ermine And miniver, The barren branches heavily Flanged with fur. Like Angels changed in flight To alabaster, Still lovely their truant plumes In white disaster. The bushes are debutantes Just come of age With flounces and feathers and fanfarol Of icy foliage. The brook, now damascened Like a fine blade, Through the wood's white filigree threads A silver braid; On panes a crystal pencil Has embossed Scrolls and flourishes and free Arabesques of frost. Good people with Christmas faces That tingle and glow Swallow the wholesome, frost-fine Sweetness of snow; And when the mocking sun shines, Roof and street Put out the long glass fingers Of the snow elite. Our thoughts, our eyes, our spirits, Are cleansed with mirth And mend like the frost-bound muscles Of the resting earth. KEN ETHERIDGE-