The trees are bare, the fields are brown; The frozen morning lies around. Calmly the fox looks to the east, His breath, a cloud, breaks on the feast.

No willow rustles, no earth moves; The stillness seems to hold its groves. The brook is stilled, and goes no more, And silence buries all its lore.

The days remember, days gone past, The snows of earlier winters cast. Such bitter truths weave hard with hope: In barren sights, our dreams elope.

• Philip Larkin