IN THE ALPS.

It is spring by now in the world, but here The doom of winter on all the year; A little brown bird flits to and fro, Watching perhaps for a rift of blue Where the mists divide and the sky looks through, Or a crocus-bell in the half-thawed snow.

Little brown bird, have you no nest here When winds blow cold in the long starlight? Never a tree, and the fields so white— And are you ever a wayfarer? It is spring by now in the vales below, And why do you stay in the world of snow?