Still falls the snow. White-thatched are all the groves.
Lost field, sunk roadway, and the buried heather
Lie in unbroken whiteness all together.
This is not snow of any worldly weather,
For now the Queen of Loves
Drops to our earth feather on crystal feather
Plucked from her team of doves.
Cold in the moonlight cold the hoar-frost shines
On forests lost in snow, a desolation
Like seas of foam in frozen fluctuation.
Those moon-lit fires of frosty scintillation
On boughs of frozen pines
Are jewels from the days before Creation
Dug from no mortal mines.
Row upon glassy row, from cornice white
Of boughs and thatches, hang the slim and even
Long icicles, like daggers frost-engraven.
Seven on the eaves and on the pine-bough seven
These are the swords shall smite
The heart of Mary Mother, Queen of Heaven;
For on this winter’s night
The hidden Flower of Love wakes from its dreaming,
Breaks the green sheath, uncurls each petal folded;
And silently as dew on green leaves gleaming
The world is shattered and a new world moulded
In Love’s own likeness, ere world-weary men
Have taken breath and breathed it out again.