The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, That is the sound of the land full of the frost, And the sound of the wind Is the sound of a man singing.

For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing That is.

• Wallace Stevens