Winter

In the field, two horses,
Two swans on the river,
While a wind blows over
A waste of thistles Crowded like men;
And now again
My thoughts are children
With uneasy faces
That awake and rise Beneath running skies
From buried places.

For the line of a swan
Diagonal on water
Is the cold of winter,
And each horse like a passion
Long since defeated Lowers its head,
And oh, they invade
My cloaked-up mind
Till memory unlooses
Its brooch of faces -
Streams far behind.

Then the whole heath whistles
In the leaping wind,
And shrivelled men stand
Crowding like thistles
To one fruitless place;
Yet still the miracles
Exhume in each face
Strong silken seed,
That to the static
Gold winter sun throws back
Endless and cloudless pride.