From the breath of whose cruel mouth,
Sighing, the leaves in forest and wold,
Shivered and died in the nights a'cold,
Died and were buried under the snow,
Long moons ago.

Now over the tropic's broad ellipse
The sprite hath passed, as fleet and fast
As the light of falling stars, that cast
A sudden radiance and eclipse;
And all the buds that are folded close
As the inner leaves of an unblown rose,
In bulb, or cone, or scale, or sheath,
And sealed with the odorous gums that breathe
Like the breath of the singing and sighing pine,
When the dews are falling at evening time,
Through cone, and sheath, and bulb, and scale--
Tremble, and cry All hail!

And look where a rosier beam hath cleft
The damp and fragrant-smelling earth,
A handful of snow-drops peeping forth;
As if King Winter had dropped and left--
Stumbling and tripping the steep hills down--
Had clutched his robe and dropped his crown:
Or as if the very snow had power,
Out of itself to fashion a flower;
So vase-like, slender, and exquisite,
Like an alabaster lamp alit,--