It's January's fog mirroring all but a murky city;
The sparkling splendour of the day is at rest,
And a dove, lonesome, writhes in the hot gelidity.

The leaves are papers in a file on the glass;
Its plummage shake them, but they remould;
For an asylum it steals under the bench alas!

Who knows it's the poorest in the glacial garden,
And survival is a fierce combat for such haggard
Birds, and solitude, too, stacks sadness, and broken

Morale melts, and a wish for an early death is said;
Oh, I can't serve it with blanket-help, it would skim away,
And sympathy is cipher until fear of harm is dead.