The February Hush / Thomas Wentworth Higginson

The February Hush

Snow o’er the darkening moorlands,
Flakes fill the quiet air;
Drifts in the forest hollows,
And a soft mask everywhere.

The nearest twig on the pine-tree
Looks blue through the whitening sky,
And the clinging beech-leaves rustle
Though never a wind goes by.

But there’s red on the wildrose berries,
And red in the lovely glow
On the cheeks of the child beside me,
That once were pale, like snow.

~~
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911)
from The Afternoon Landscape, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

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