La Neige, Charles-François Daubigny (1873)

The Visitors

The snow’s cold whiteness creeps up to my door
While the melancholy sun bids farewell
Mystically crows swarm more than five score
There is an urgent message they must tell

Raising my shovel they will not scatter
With great fear I hold my quivering breath
It’s easy to understand their banter
These darkened creatures sing their song of death

Where summer they’d quietly steal my corn
Autumn barren fields provide easy prey
Not here to repay my gun’s bitter scorn
No they’re just here to say this is my day

Would prefer a single singing angel
Rather than this rowdy crowd of babel