Poem

THE SHORT AND LONG OF IT
by Samuel French Morse

The shortest day burns down to frost
as gray as ash.

The light, too still,
too insubstantial now to fill
the Northeast Corner, goes by four.

It goes a good half hour before
you start back through the fallen chill,
hearing the spruces on the hill
cry out as if they too were lost.

Though you may have to grope your way
almost by instinct down to where
the kitchen window spills its light
out on the dark, once you are there
you ought to have enough to say
to see you through the longest night.