I woke to hear the soft sound of the rain,
Oddly insistent in my drowsy ear.
It quickened, and I saw a storm of hail
Plummeting down, to whiten path and lawn.
Above me swept the trailing skirts of cloud,
Flying before the swift hounds of the wind.
Below my window, clumps of snowdrops bloomed,
Frail harbingers of spring: yet for a while
Winter did thus assert its threatened reign.
Sheila Durbin