‘Neath the ice there lies, hidden from my eyes,
A brightness now dormant and dimmed.
In the deep, cold ground, far from sight and sound,
Waits a tulip with scarlet brimmed.
Never I hear in the wood dead and drear
The life that is raging within
The sap in the bough that flows even now
And promises leaves for the spring.
As the old year wanes and the new one gains
But the nights stay long and dark
Who’d ever guess that the brightest and best
Of the seasons now comes with the lark?
And beneath my skin there’s a soul grown thin
On the meager feasts of earth
But beyond this strife I will yet find Life
At my new and second birth.
