December

by Bayard Taylor

The beech is bare, and bare the ash,
The thickets white below;
The fir-tree scowls with hoar moustache,
He cannot sing for snow.

The body-guard of veteran pines,
A grim battalion, stands;
They ground their arms, in ordered lines,
For Winter so commands.

The waves are dumb along the shore,
The river's pulse is still;
The north-wind's bugle blows no more
Reveillé from the hill.

The rustling sift of falling snow,
The muffled crush of leaves,
These are the sounds suppressed, that show
How much the forest grieves;

But, as the blind and vacant Day
Crawls to his ashy bed,
I hear dull echoes far away,
Like drums above the dead.

Sigh with me, Pine that never changed!
Thou wear'st the Summer's hue;
Her other loves are all estranged,
But thou and I are true!