It freezes. All across a soundless sky
The birds go home. The horrible dark’s begun:
The frozen dark that hopes not for a sun;
The ultimate dark wherein our race shall die.
Death, with his evil finger to his lip,
Leers in at human windows, turning spy
To learn the country where his rule shall lie
When he achieves perpetual generalship.
The undefeated enemy—the chill—
Which shall benumb the voiceful earth at last,
Is master of our moment, and has bound
The viewless wind itself. There is no sound.
It freezes. Every friendly stream is fast.
It freezes; and the graven twigs are still.