No flower in all the land —
No leaf upon the tree,
Blossom, or bud, or fruit,
But an icy fringe instead;
And the birds are flown, or dead,
And the world is mute.
The white, cold moonbeams shiver
On the dark face of the river,
While still and slow the waters flow
Out to the open sea;
The moveless pine-trees stand,
Black fortressed on the hill;
And white, and cold, and still,
Wherever the eye may go,
The ghostly snow:
The vast, unbroken silences of snow.

I look out upon the night,
And the darkly flowing river,
And the near stars, with no quiver
In their calm and steady light,
And listen for the voice of the great sea,
And the silence answers me.
O Sea of the West, that comes
With a sound as of rolling drums,
With a muffled beat
As of marching feet,
Up the long lifts of sand,
The golden drifts of sand,
On the long, long shining strand.
An opal, rimmed with blue,
An emerald, shining through
The pearl's and ruby's dyes,
And crests that catch the blaze
Of the diamond's rays,
Under thy perfect skies!

O Land of the West, I know
How the field flowers bud and blow,
And the grass springs and the grain,
To the first soft touch and summons of the rain.
O, the music of the rain!
O, the music of the streams!
Dream music, heard in dreams,
As I listen through the night,
While the snow falls, still and white.
I hear the branches sway In the breeze's play,
And the forests' solemn hymns:
Almost I hear the stir
Of the sap in their mighty limbs
Like blood in living veins!
The rose is in the lanes,
And the insects buzz and whir;
And where the purple fills
The spaces of the hills,
In one swift month the poppy will lift up
Its golden cup.
And O, and O, in the sunshine and the rain,
Rings out that perfect strain, —
The earth's divinest song!
My bird, with the plain, brown breast,
My lark of the golden west,
Up, up, thy joy notes soar,
And sorrow is no more,
And pain has passed away
In the rapture of thy lay!
Up, up, the glad notes throng,
And the soul is borne along
On the pinions of thy song,
Up from the meadow's sod,
Up from the world's unrest,
To peace, to heaven, to God!

And I listen through the silence of the night,
While the snow falls, still and white.