First Snow

by Arthur Henry King

Late in autumn, early awake,

my windows wide on the mountain wall

and the full moon, I feel the winter cold

and, from the farm below,

I hear the cock crow.

The whisper of grass beneath a summer wind,

rippling and veering like weed under running water,

and tree-spots of shade in the midst of shining grain

I must forgo

and wait for snow.

(It came one night on the heights and went next day,

and some night now it will return to stay.)

Nevertheless,

the harvest of the Lord is at all high times,

and most at the season of man’s gathering-in—

not that I am part of a passive crop,

but though hired late, a labourer; so let me get to work.