It is deep January. The sky is hard.The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.It is in this solitude, a syllable,Out of these gawky flitterings,Intones its single emptiness,The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow

Cold is our element and winter's air Brings voices as of lions coming down.

The mind is the great poem of winter, the man, Who, to find what will suffice, Destroys romantic tenements Of rose and ice....

The leaves hop, scraping on the ground. It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. It is in this solitude, a syllable, Out of these gawky flitterings, Intones its single emptiness, The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.