Lantern in the Snow

 LANTERN in the SNOW by Robert T. Tristram Coffin (1892-1955)
This thing is beautiful , I know, a lantern burning in the snow,
                   
 Which diggers left so men might see, their hole beneath my lilac tree.

 The lantern makes a spot of gold, alien to the dark and cold,

 Burning stead as it can , as if a warm good part of man were left outside there in the night,

To go on working, giving light.

 The  glow strikes down and shows the ground, a single solitary mound

 of whiteness set in vacant space,

 The light strikes up and shows the grace of the lilac's limbs and bar,,

 An open fan against the dark,

The snow falls round the common thing,

 And makes a dim, mysterious ring
                                      
 Of flaky flame that wheels and turns,

 As the lonely lantern burns.

 There are only four or five such sights for any man alive in all the years he has to go like this lantern in the snow."

 Robert P.T. Coffin was a professor at Wells College and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. for his book "A Strange Holiness" ( 1936) He also was an artist, and illustrated his books in black and white original drawings.