Today the wind through winter’s unclad bones
Drowns in its woeful howl my soul’s discant;
Beyond, a distant hunter’s oliphant
Salutes the dead beneath their frost-bound stones.

Today the wind sweet music’s loss bemoans,
No more to laud, beneath this canopy
Of slate-grey clouds, thy beauty’s panoply:
Boreas blows his low, hibernal drones.

Oh, be it given me to turn the groans
Of the expiring year to song, and grant
That that thy fair radiance release my chant,
On love’s warm wings, to heaven’s starry zones!