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Emile Verhaeren - The Snow
Work rating: Low

Uninterruptedly falls the snow,
Like meagre, long wool-strands, scant and slow,
O`er the meagre, long plain disconsolate.
Cold with lovelessness, warm with hate.

Infinite, infinite falls the snow.
Like a moment`s time.
Monotonously, in a moment`s time;
On the houses it falls and drops, the snow.
Monotonous, whitening them o`er with rime;
It falls on the sheds and their palings below.
And myriad-wise, it falls and lies
        In ridgèd waves
In the churchyard hollows between the graves.

The apron of all inclement weather
Is roughly unfastened, there on high;
The apron of woes and misery
Is shaken by wind-gusts violently
Down on the hamlets that crouch together
Beneath the dull horizon-sky.

The frost creeps down to the very bones,
And want creeps in through the walls and stones;
Yea, snow and want round the souls creep close,
--The heavy snow diaphanous--
Round the stone-cold hearths and the flameless souls
That wither away in their huts and holes.

The hamlets bare
White, white as Death lie yonder, where
The crookèd roadways cross and halt;
Like branching traceries of salt
The trees, all crystallized with frost,
Stretch forth their boughs, entwined and crost.
Along the ways, as on they go
In far procession o`er the snow.

Then here and there, some ancient mill,
Where light, pale mosses aggregate,
Appears on a sudden, standing straight
Like a snare upon its lonely hill.
The roofs and sheds, down there below.
Since November dawned, have been wrestling still,
In contrary blasts, with the hurricane;
While, thick and full, yet falls amain
The infinite snow, with its weary weight,
O`er the meagre, long plain disconsolate.

Thus journeys the snow afar so fleet.
Into every cranny, on every trail;
Always the snow and its winding-sheet,
The mortuary snow so pale.
The snow, unfruitful and so pale.
In wild and vagabond tatters hurled
Through the limitless winter of the world.
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