The needles of the cold winds
Use the nose and fingers
        For a pincushion.
What, on the white sidewalk,
Is this dark and trembling being 
        Who is sobbing?

The poor child! Look,
The cough, with jarring shocks,
        Shakes her,
And the chill wind that stings her
Puts roses of death 
        On her cheek.

Violets are not so 
Violet as the corners 
        Of her lips,
As the skin beneath her eyes
Bruised by the blue kisses
        Of her fever.

Cough! Cough! Again! Now
One seems to hear the hammer 
        Of a forge;
Now the rattle, brighter
Like a clarion, plays a tune
        In her throat.

Cough! Cough! Cough! Again!
Oh! The hard and raucous chord
        That cackles.
This broad and deep clarion 
Sounds, for those departing,
        A reveille.

Cough! It is the piercing cry
Of one drowning, sinking heavily 
        Beneath the foam.
Cough! It is far, far away 
Like a death knell extinguished 
        In the mist.

Cough! Cough! One last shock!
On her neck she lets
        Her head drop,
Like a torch in a chill wind;
And for the peace of the tomb
        She is ready.

Tonight she will be wed,
Without bouquet, without censer,
        Without music,
Sooner than one might have thought,
To Winter, that ancient betrothed
        Of consumptives.