Late autumns, winters, springtimes steeped in mud,
O drowsy seasons! I love and I praise you
For enfolding my heart and my brain
In a misty shroud, a cloudy tomb

In this great plain, where the cold south wind plays,
Where through the long night
The weather-cock shrieks himself hoarse,
My soul, far better than in the days of warm renewal,
Will spread wide its raven's wings

No thing is more dear to my chilled and gloomy heart,
O dismal seasons, queens of our sad climate,
Than the changeless aspect of your pale shadows
Unless it be, on a moonless night, two by two,
To lay our suffering to sleep on a perilous bed