Smoke in Winter by Henry David Thoreau — Read

The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell, / The stiffened air exploring in the dawn, / And making slow acquaintance with the day;

Delaying now upon its heavenward course, / In wreathèd loiterings dallying with itself, / With as uncertain purpose and slow deed, / As its half-wakened master by the hearth, / Whose mind, still slumbering, and sluggish thoughts / Have not yet swept into the onward current / Of the new day; -- and now it streams afar, / The while the chopper goes with step direct, / And mind intent to wield the early axe.

First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad / His early scout, his emissary, smoke, / The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof, / To feel the frosty air, inform the day;

And while he crouches still beside the hearth, / Nor musters courage to unbar the door, / It has gone down the glen with the light wind, / And o'er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath, / Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill, / And warmed the pinions of the early bird;

And now, perchance, high in the crispy air, / Has caught sight of the day o'er the earth's edge, / And greets its master's eye at his low door, / As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.