Jagg'd mountain peaks and skies ice-green
 Wall in the wild, cold scene below.
 Churches, farms, bare copse, the sea
 In freezing quiet of winter show;
 Where ink-black shapes on fields in flood
 Curling, skating, and sliding go.
 To left, a gabled tavern; a blaze;
 Peasants; a watching child; and lo,
 Muffled, mute--beneath naked trees
 In sharp perspective set a-row--
 Trudge huntsmen, sinister spears aslant,
 Dogs snuffling behind them in the snow;
 And arrowlike, lean, athwart the air
 Swoops into space a crow.
 But flame, nor ice, nor piercing rock,
 Nor silence, as of a frozen sea,
 Nor that slant inward infinite line
 Of signboard, bird, and hill, and tree,
 Give more than subtle hint of him
 Who squandered here life's mystery.