"Trees of Winter"

E.B. White

Oh, they are lovely trees that wait
      In the still hall of winter,
      Silent and good where the Good Planter
Fixed the root, wove the branch delicate.

Friendly the birches in the thin light
      By the frost sanctified,
      And here, too, silent by their side
I stand in the woods, listening, upright,

Hearing in the cold of the long pause
      Of the full year
      What trees intend that I should hear:
Interpretations of old laws...

Hearing the faint, the chickadee cry
      Of root that molders,
      Of branch bent, and leaf that withers,
And little brown seed that does not die.