December / Stuart Livingston

December

The woods that summer loved are grey and bare;
The sombre trees stretch up their arms on high,
In mute appeal, against the leaden sky;
A flurry faint of snow is in the air.
All day the clouds have hung in heavy fold
Above the valley, where grey shadows steal;
And I, who sit and watch them, seem to feel
A touch of sadness as the day grows old.
But o'er my fancy comes a tender face,
A dream of curls that float like sunlight golden,
A subtle fragrance, filling all the place,
The whisper of a story that is olden
Till breaks the sun through dull December skies,
And all the world is springtime in the deep blue of her eyes.

~~
Stuart Livingston
from In Various Moods, 1894

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Stuart Livingston biography