Under the Snow / James Lewis Milligan

Under the Snow

Over the wall I look, and lo!
All the graves are under the snow:
A more appropriate pall, I ween,
Than Summer's embroider'd garb of green;
For Death is white, and cold, and dumb,
And on its waste there's ne'er a crumb
For the birds forlorn of yester-year,
That wait to see the Spring appear;
That wait and starve in perplex'd despair,
And dream of a world that once was fair.

~~
James Lewis Milligan (1876-1961)
from Songs in Time's Despite, 1910

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

James Lewis Milligan biography