Frozen Brook

The cold increases. Where you see the gleam And the black water, ice has still to form.

If the ice holds tomorrow, clean and sound,
Look where the last free, floating things were caught;

Think, at least, it is true: about mid-stream, On the thin, trackless ice the cold draws taut

Across the shiftless current now, that line
(Leaves, and some blown straw, the late dust) will mark

Our northern slackness with its own design.
It is true: and the stream flows under, dark.


The Immobile World, by Samuel French Morse