The frost that stings like fire upon my cheek,
The loneliness of this forsaken ground,
The long white drift upon whose powdered peak
I sit in the great silence as one bound;
The rippled sheet of snow where the wind blew
Across the open fields for miles ahead;
The far-off city towered and roofed in blue
A tender line upon the western red;
The stars that singly, then in flocks appear,
Like jets of silver from the violet dome,
So wonderful, so many and so near,
And then the golden moon to light me home—
The crunching snowshoes and the stinging air,
And silence, frost, and beauty everywhere.
Notes
Composition Date:
January 30, 1899: this is Lampman's last poem (Whitridge, xxviii).
Form:
Sonnet: ababcdcdefefgg
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Comments
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Written in his late thirties, Lampman's sonnet is beautifully progressed from frost, snow, ground views, the open sky of stars then moon: such a sense of spaciousness and a hint of loved desolation. Substitution of the regular iambic pentameter to advasntagefor above all, poetry, especially like this, is meant to be heard. Lyndon.
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