The Last of Winter

I. The Last of Winter.
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Oh, not for us the primrose faint, the south wind’s hush-a-low
Down shining aisles of the beech-trees that know us years ago!
Here there’s a long, long allence and the dumbly falling snow.

The prairie polls away, away, the Mils are covered deep.
The water springs in the coulees are sleeping a frozen sleep.
The sun-dogs glimmer for a storm;
how long shall winter keep?

Among the hungry cattle ’tis weary work to ride
And see the weak-kneed mothers go stumbling side by side,
Muzzling under the crusted snow for where new grass may hide.

There’s not a blade of green yet, the last year’s growth is renk,
Sodden and brown beneath the snow en hill and bottom and bank.
Every horse is a brute this month, and every man is a crank.

Only the evening hours are good, when two can sit apart
Within the light of the fire they lit. cursing the winter’s smart;
The hand is warm in another hand, the heart is safe with a heart.

II. The First of Spring.
There was a sound of whistling wings over the house last night,
And the wild duck dropped in the creek below, resting upon his flight;
Now the mallard with his emerald neck is swimming round in the light.

A warm wind from the mountains came pouring like a tide.
The strong Chinook has broken the heart of winter’s icy pride,
And the snow has all gone up like smoke from a prairie sunny and wide.

Here are gray buds of the crocus, but shut and slivery dim,
Along the creek there are mouse-ears on the willows red and slim;
A blue tit feeds there upside down. in the manner approved by him.

Hill snows melt and rush in streams bubbling and dark as wine:
Cattle are drifting out of the hills- well do we know that sign!
And soft clouds blowing across the blue have a beauty half divine.

New grass and sweet will soon be here, and the patient herd grow strong,
They will forget the cruel frost and all the winter’s wrong:
None can be glad as we are glad un- less they have waited long.
-Moira O’Neill, McClure’s