Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

In the gloom of whiteness,
In the great silence of snow,
A child was sighing
And bitterly saying: "Oh,
They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,
The down is fluttering from her breast!"
And still it fell through that dusky brightness
On the child crying for the bird of the snow.

- January 7, 1915


The child in the poem is Thomas' youngest daughter, Myfanwy.