For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

No hawk hangs over in this air: The urgent snow is everywhere. The wing adroiter than a sail Must lean away from such a gale.

So, leave the crows perched along the tree line watching over us. Leave them be. The setting sun? Leave it be. For God’s sake, what could be easier.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

O Winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire, What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn Of death!

The door was shut, as doors should be, Before you went to bed last night; Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see, And left your window silver white.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Mirth, full of joy as summer bees, Sits there, its pleasures to impart, And children, ‘tween their parent’s knees, Sing scraps of carols o’er by heart.

The lamps are burning in the synagogue, In the houses of study, in dark alleys . . . This should be the place. This is the way.

On a clear winter’s evening The crescent moon And the round squirrels’ nest In the bare oak Are equal planets.

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk!  he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation.

Heap high the farmer’s wintry hoard! Heap high the golden corn! No richer gift has Autumn poured From out her lavish horn!

We lie on the cold sand and it embraces us, this beach where locals never go in summer and boast of their absence.

How silently they tumble down And come to rest upon the ground To lay a carpet, rich and rare, Beneath the trees without a care.

On the last of October When dusk is fallen Children join hands And circle round me Singing ghost songs And love to the harvest moon.

Poor little Ada Queetie She used to do everything I told her, Let it be what it would, And knew every word I said to her.

Wild geese stir in the early morning calm With a ripple of their wake. Far off, near the shore’s arm of dune that holds the pond, A kayak glides.

Smooth reflections of rock and tree, And out past the narrows a glimpse of sea? While I, of the scene a conscious part, Have a harbor for all in my welcoming heart.

It’s all a farce, — these tales they tell About the breezes sighing, And moans astir o’er field and dell, Because the year is dying.

The milkweed pods are breaking, And the bits of silken down Float off upon the autumn breeze Across the meadows brown.