Nets to Catch the Wind

<h3> <SPAN name="winter"></SPAN> WINTER SLEEP<br/> </h3> <p class="poem"> When against earth a wooden heel<br/> Clicks as loud as stone and steel,<br/> When snow turns flour instead of flakes,<br/> And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,<br/> When the hard-bitten fields at last<br/> Crack like iron flawed in the cast,<br/> When the world is wicked and cross and old,<br/> I long to be quit of the cruel cold.<br/></p> <p class="poem"> Little birds like bubbles of glass<br/> Fly to other Americas,<br/> Birds as bright as sparkles of wine<br/> Fly in the night to the Argentine,<br/> Birds of azure and flame-birds go<br/> To the tropical Gulf of Mexico:<br/> They chase the sun, they follow the heat,<br/> It is sweet in their bones, O sweet, sweet, sweet!<br/> It's not with them that I'd love to be,<br/> But under the roots of the balsam tree.<br/></p> <p class="poem"> Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr<br/> Is lined within with the finest fur,<br/> So the stony-walled, snow-roofed house<br/> Of every squirrel and mole and mouse<br/> Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull's feather,<br/> Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together<br/> With balsam and juniper, dry and curled,<br/> Sweeter than anything else in the world.<br/> O what a warm and darksome nest<br/> Where the wildest things are hidden to rest!<br/> It's there that I'd love to lie and sleep,<br/> Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep!<br/></p> <p><br/><br/><br/></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />