Page:Poems and ballads, third series (IA poemsballadsthir00swin).pdf/17

iii.

Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the

wind and the sun have dispelled and consumed,
Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose
luminous burden the branches implumed
Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not
as birds are, but petalled as flowers,
Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and
carved, or a fountain that shines as it showers,
But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to
last till by time or by tempest entombed,
As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of
its doom is no more than an hour's,
One hour of the sun's when the warm wind wakes him to
wither the snow-flowers that froze as they bloomed.

iv.

As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April

subdues thee, and yields up his kingdom to May;