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THE HARD WINTER EDGAR MclNNIS L OOK from the window; you .can see . How harsh and bitter stands the tree, The stark gnarled branches lifting black Against the sullen shifting wrack Of clouds; and how the first faint snow Edges the skeleton limbs with white To make them bleaker still, and slow The last brown leaf swirls out of sight. The last leaf and the first snow fall Together: leaves and leaves were all It bore us summer and autumn through; Now even they are gone, and you And I have dreamed our dreams in vain, And winter is on us once again. So there will be no shining rows Laid in the loft; no frui t to fill·The frosty air with sweetness-rows Ruddy and amber, guarding still Their mellowed sunlight; there will be No laurels at the winter fair, No profits wrung triumphantly .From chaffering in the market square, No squandering them on luxuries To give desire's long ache surcease. There will be only as of old To face the hunger and the cold With bodies never warm enough, And bellies never quite appeased, 186 THE HARD WINTER And the same clothes of outworn stuff, Patched and turned and many-creased, And always one more bill to pay Beyond our strength, till every day Lifts its eternal crucifix And life is a fire of failing sticks, An aching weariness at night, ,A prowling wind, a flickering light, A garment with a ravelled seamThe hard world conquering a dream. ' , Ah love, it is not we alone Have seen our fugitive star-dust blown ' To nothingness, and felt the stark Cold tides of fear sweep through theldark. This is earth's old revengeful thrallThis is as old 'as Adam's fall. , Surely it was without distress Or empty parleying with fate That Adam faced the wilderness And looked his last 011 Eden gate. At last a man was free to take His courage into both his hands ' And tame an alien soil, and break The stubbornness of wasted lands. All the brave world beneath the sun Welcomed him-how could he foresee The soaring hopes slain Cine by one Till there remained a single tree To mock him while the summer passed And then betray him at the last? He had not felt the iron hand Of winter laid upon the land 187 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY When summer and autumn spent again' Sawall his labour still in vain, Nor watched the treacherous spring appear A little less hopefully each year. Surely it was a splendid thing That called him forth adventuring, But life would leave him nothing whole Except t~e granite in his soul. And when each year had etched the trace Of rugged winter on his face, And hewn it deep with wind and sun, One grey day when his youth was done Would come, half lost, half overheard The song of some forgotten bird Suddenly waking sharp as pain A vision of Eden.won againEden before an angry Power Had cursed the earth with barrenness, A wealth of flower on p'erfect flower Untrammelled by the wilderness, And in that fair lost paradise Across the years of discontent A youth who looked with Adam's eyes On Eve still eager and innocent Standing on tiptoe, slim and white; To'marvel at some new delight, With a whole world to comprehend, As though delight would never end. Then as he read in Time's. grave eyes His long inexorable fate Beyond evasion or surmise, And stood, heart-sick and desolate, 188 · THE HARD WINTER Would he regret the light disdain That cast away security . To wander naked in the rain, And eat the bread of poverty, And watch old age come down, and grieve Over the loveliness that was Eve? Or would he find his soul's reward More than the bitter price he paid, And watch Death lift a flaming sword, And front him, and be undismayed? o love, 0 strong and unsubdued, Out of the fierceness and the strife We have won through to fortitude Before the pitiless march of life. We know the swift unsullied years That were so confident and...

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