The long days came and went; the riotous bees
  Tore the warm grapes in many a dusty vine,
And men grew faint and thin with too much ease,
        And Winter gave no sign: 
But all the while beyond the northmost woods
  He sat and smiled and watched his spirits play
  In elfish dance and eery roundelay,
        Tripping in many moods
With snowy curve and fairy crystal shine.

But now the time is come:  with southward speed
  The elfin spirits pass:  a secret sting
Hath fallen and smitten flower and fruit and weed,
        And every leafy thing. 
The wet woods moan:  the dead leaves break and fall;
  In still night-watches wakeful men have heard
  The muffled pipe of many a passing bird,
        High over hut and hall,
Straining to southward and unresting wing.

And then they come with colder feet, and fret
  The winds with snow, and tuck the streams to sleep
With icy sheet and gleaming coverlet,
        And fill the valleys deep
With curved drifts, and a strange music raves
  Among the pines, sometimes in wails, and then
  In whistled laughter, till affrighted men
        Draw close, and into caves
And earthy holes the blind beasts curl and creep.

And so all day above the toiling heads
  Of men’s poor chimneys, full of impish freaks,
Tearing and twisting in tight-curled shreds
        The vain unnumbered reeks,
The Winter speeds his fairies forth and mocks
  Poor bitten men with laughter icy cold,
  Turning the brown of youth to white and old
        With hoary-woven locks,
And grey men young with roses in their cheeks.

And after thaws, when liberal water swells
  The bursting eaves, he biddeth drip and grow
The curly horns of ribbed icicles
        In many a beard-like row. 
In secret moods of mercy and soft dole,
  Old warped wrecks and things of mouldering death
  That summer scorns and man abandoneth
        His careful hands console
With lawny robes and draperies of snow.

And when the night comes, his spirits with chill feet,
  Winged with white mirth and noiseless mockery,
Across men’s pallid windows peer and fleet,
        And smiling silverly
Draw with mute fingers on the frosted glass
  Quaint fairy shapes of iced witcheries,
  Pale flowers and glinting ferns and frigid trees
        And meads of mystic grass,
Graven in many an austere phantasy.

But far away the Winter dreams alone,
  Rustling among his snow-drifts, and resigns
Cold fondling ears to hear the cedars moan
        In dusky-skirted lines
Strange answers of an ancient runic call;
  Or somewhere watches with antique eyes,
  Gray-chill with frosty-lidded reveries,
        The silvery moonshine fall
In misty wedges through the girth of pines.