All day the snow fell on that Eastern town With its soft, pelting, little, endless sigh Of infinite flakes that brought the tall sky down Till I could put my hands in the white sky

And taste cold scraps of heaven on my tongue And walk in such a changed and luminous light As gods inhabit when the gods are young. All day it fell. And when the gathered night

Was a blue shadow cast by a pale glow I saw you then, snow-image, bird of the snow.

And I have seen and heard you in the dry Close-huddled furnace of the city street When the parched moon was planted in the sky And the limp air hung dead against the heat.

I saw you rise, red as that rusty plant, Dizzied with lights, half-mad with senseless sound, Enormous metal, shaking to the chant Of a triphammer striking iron ground.