T'was midnight, and t'was silent in the wood,
Save for the breath of wind upon the snow
The darkened sky drawn up like cowl and hood
Was sparkled by the crystal stars' cold glow

The reaching pines stood round in silent watch
Saw from horizon lift the crescent white
Till clouds crept forth and hid her trav'ling arch
And wrapped in amethyst the frozen night

Hark to the whispered pad of treading paw,
And tinkling as the ice on ice does ring,
And curling breath of frozen chillness raw;
Here comes from distant north, the Winterking

His antlers as the spreading oaken bough
His shaggy coat hung with ice gimlet glint
His step, a fairy's lightness, does not plow
And leaves upon the snow's face scarce a print

Taller than the yew bush rose his face,
Adorned with greying beard and onyx eye,
Plodding onward still with pond'rous grace,
To unspake destination drawing nigh.

Now see! He pauses in the woodland's heart
Where once was silent comes alive with sound
The trees about him seem to spread apart
As Winterking bows low, till beard sweeps ground.

The birds of winter have come forth to greet
They perch as living ornaments in mass
The animals as well stand here to greet
With no fear in their gaze, each bold as brass

The Cardinal, in festive crimson dressed,
The Wren, the tiny bard with coat of brown
They bear between them both the season's best:
The Living Holly Branch, twined in a crown.

Fly they forward to the Winterking,
And place the royal wreath upon his brow,
In one voice the Holly Bearers sing,
and return again to perch, and both do bow.

The buck and doe, who seem as distant kin,
but dwarfed by his size, as a sire to pup.
They bring another Holly strand, a twin,
And 'round his noble neck they bind it up.

The Winterking stands now, both wreathed and crowned,
And Lifts his bedecked shaggy head on high,
From the silent congregation comes no sound,
So all can hear the whisper of his sigh.

That sighing breath, that exhalation made,
It rises to the purple clouds slung low
And in the tingling quiet of that glade
The Winterking calls down the winter snow.