A Winter's Rime
(In a churchyard in Northern Ireland)
Through the broken and barren trees
Winter exhales its coldest breeze
From the wintry breath of northern seas
That can chill the warmest soul.
Thus in the churchyard by the sea
Nigh one broken and barren tree
Lies cold a soul once warm to me
Beneath the winter’s rime.
As the heart of winter doth unfold
I feel its touch, so dark and cold,
For I yearn at night to yet behold
That soul once warm to me.
But in earthen depths doth she lie
E’er below the moon and starlit sky
As yet unto her grave I wander by
And despair the winter’s rime.
O’ the winter wails upon the still
With its bleak and bitter chill
That conjures from the nightly nil
A soul once warm to me!
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