They Might Be Giants

Jan

26

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter 

To regard the frost and the boughs 

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

 

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 


The spruces rough in the distant glitter 

 

Of the January sun; and not to think 


Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 


In the sound of a few leaves, 

 

Which is the sound of the land 


Full of the same wind 


That is blowing in the same bare place 

 

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 


And, nothing himself, beholds 

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.