A slumberous swoon of breath rises,
As the steaming dew-cloud
Purls in a descending spray.
Upon whose head the hoary vapors shroud?
In churning knots of shivering smoke,
That quivered the toad’s lamenting sound,
His pond stiffened by summer’s pressing stroke.
Lushly laying, as a seafarer would touch the ground, 
Before whirled and tossed ‘round;
In one gusty gale the pallid veil frayed,
One great winnow and the showcase broke,
Reveling the wholly-winter’s pray.
Breast still distending proud,
Framed in a laden lay.

Feathers dither and stretch
Though molted, and his down does choke
And wings cannot, this time abet his abscond
For too dressed is he, underneath the icy cloak.
Comely locks of most benign death
As the rueful Macaria settles her gown
And breaths a sigh that makes the ears blush,
And better hark the lulling sound.
Of snoring trees and laden lush,
That grunt at they kick and push
The bundling blankets of glass.
And the steaming hums of a frozen lark
Settled upon the sharpened grass.

Flute he should, for his anonymous day’s a-flight
A conclusive composition sweet.
For his feathers that caught up to the sun,
Waving their shadows over fields of wheat.
For floating though as he pleased,
Past the cragged and untrodden street.
For when he rested on lush towers tall,
For when he found use in his gangling feet.
Piping chants that paused the wayfaring stranger,
And have he too rest himself on the sod just beneath.
For never needing to fold his wings,
Only when he felt a rest or greet.
And for when touching adown, the morning dew-fed soil,
Only as means to eat.

His composition wholly mellowed,
His final and most well-versed feat,
That surely would blush the cavorting larks
Who left him behind for the southern heat.
More reposed then his laden lay,
Needless baritone or accompanying beat,
To further carry the lamentation he churned,
Steaming in his lungs, condensed and complete.
Yet his beak too was dressed
In attire akin to his cloaked pleat,
He struggled to yet couldn’t,
Evoke the thinnest tweet.
And so silently he slouched,
Further into his frost-bitten seat.
With eyes still the blackest of beads
Open and conflagrant although sound asleep.