Arcadian Winter by Willa Cather

Woe is me to tell it thee, / Winter winds in Arcady! / Scattered is thy flock and fled / From the glades where once it fed, / And the snow lies drifted white / In the bower of our delight, / Where the beech threw gracious shade / On the cheek of boy and maid: / And the bitter blasts make roar / Through the fleshless sycamore.

White enchantment holds the spring, / Where thou once wert wont to sing, / And the cold hath cut to death / Reeds melodious of thy breath. / He, the rival of thy lyre, / Nightingale with note of fire, / Sings no more; but far away, / From the windy hill-side gray, / Calls the broken note forlorn / Of an aged shepherd's horn.

Still about the fire they tell / How it long ago befell / That a shepherd maid and lad / Met and trembled and were glad; / When the swift spring waters ran, / And the wind to boy or man / Brought the aching of his sires -- / Song and love and all desires. / Ere the starry dogwoods fell / They were lovers, so they tell.

Woe is me to tell it thee, / Winter winds in Arcady! / Broken pipes and vows forgot, / Scattered flocks returning not, / Frozen brook and drifted hill, / Ashen sun and song-birds still; / Songs of summer and desire / Crooned about the winter fire; / Shepherd lads with silver hair, / Shepherd maids no longer fair.