It freezes : all across a soundless sky 
The birds go home. The governing dark's begun. 
The steadfast dark that waits not for a sun; 
The ultimate dark wherein the race shall die. 
Death with his evil finger to his lip 
Leers in at human windows, turning spy 
To learn the country where his rules shall lie 
When he assumes perpetual generalship. 
The undefeated enemy, the chill 
That shall benumb the voiceful earth at last, 
Is master of our moment, and has bound 
The viewless wind itself. There is no sound. 
It freezes. Every friendly stream is fast. 
It freezes, and the graven twigs are still.