Every branch big with it
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again
The palings are glued together like a wall
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall

A sparrow enters the tree
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eye
And overturns him
And near inurns him
And lights on a nether twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush

The steps are a blanched slope
Up which, with feeble hope
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in