To Thomas Woolner
First Snow, February
WOOLNER, to—night it snows for the first time.
Our feet know well the path where in this snow
Mine leave one track: how all the ways we know
Are hoary in the long—unwonted rime!
Grey as their ghosts which now in your new clime
Must haunt you while those singing spirits reap
All night the field of hospitable sleep—
Whose song, past the whole sea, finds counter—chime.
Can the year change, and I not think of thee,
With whom so many changes of the year
So many years were watched—our love’s degree
Alone the same? Ah still for thee and me,
Winter or summer, Woolner, here or there,
One grief, one joy, one loss, one victory.
