I

January

Shaggy with skins of frost-furred gray and drab, Harsh, hoary hair framing a bitter face, He bends above the dead Year’s fireplace Nursing the last few embers of its slab To sullen glow: from pinched lips, cold and crab, The starved flame shrinks; his breath, like a menáce, Shrieks in the flue, fluttering its sooty lace, Piercing the silence like an icy stab. From rheum-gnarled knees he rises, slow with cold, And to the frost-bound window, muttering, goes, With iron knuckles knocking on the pane; And, lo! outside, his minions manifold Answer the summons: wolf-like shapes of woe, Hunger and suffering, trooping to his train.