I saw where are first gen
The fre of the ember vide
It firateth amalin mo banner rež
With a proud and lund glare.
And the Fredad 10s as tribes freak
Flame in the wintry an
O'er valley and Hill and mere I range,
And, as I sweep aling,
Gather angs that are wild and strange,
And mingle them in my song.
My voice hath been uttered everywhere,
And the sign of my presence seen ;
But the eye of man the form I wear
Hath never beheld, I ween.
HE spirits of the North were out last night,
Weaving their wizard spells on plain and hill; The moon arose and set and gave no light, The river freezing in the reeds grew still; The shuddering stars were hid behind the cloud, And all the hollow winds were wailing loud.
Where stood the ricks, three antique temples stand, Like those whose alabaster domes are seen
In old Benares, or far Samarcand,
Half hid in groves of lime and citron green,
With slender minarets whose crystal spires
Burn in the sun with keen, prismatic fires.
The pine is like a tall cathedral tower,
With oriels or withered ivy-vines
Entwined in sculptured shapes of wreath and flower,
Through which the clear, red stain of morning shines;
And underneath, the snow-draped shrub and briers
Seem kneeling groups of silent, white-robed friars.
No stone or bush but wears a rare device
Of graceful semblance or ideal form,
Fair fantasy, or sumptuous edifice;
As if the wayward Ariels of the storm
Had blent the magic arts of Prospero
With their own whims and wrought them in the snow.
INTER'S wild birthnight! In the fretful East
The uneasy wind moans with its sense of cold, And sends its sighs through gloomy mountain gorge, Along the valley, up the whitening hill, To tease the sighing spirits of the pines, And waste in dismal woods their chilly life. The sky is dark, and on the huddled leaves — The restless, rustling leaves - sifts down its sleet, Till the sharp crystals pin them to the earth, And they grow still beneath the rising storm. The roofless bullock hugs the sheltering stack,
With cringing head and closely gathered feet,
And waits with dumb endurance for the morn.
Deep in a gusty cavern of the barn,
The witless calf stands blatant at his chain;
While the brute mother, pent within her stall,
With the wild stress of instinct goes distraught,
And frets her horns, and bellows through the night.
The stream runs black; and the far waterfall
That sang so sweetly through the summer eves,
And swelled and swayed to Zephyr's softest breath,
Leaps with a sullen roar the dark abyss,
And howls its hoarse responses to the wind.
Yet lower bows the storm. The leafless trees
Lash their lithe limbs, and, with majestic voice,
Call to each other through the deepening gloom;
And slender trunks that lean on bushy boughs
Shriek with the sharp abrasion; and the oak,
Mellowed in fiber by unnumbered frosts,
Yields to the shoulder of the Titan Blast,
Forsakes its poise, and, with a booming crash,
Sweeps a fierce passage to the smothered rocks,
And lies a shattered ruin.
From "Bitter Sweet." Copyright 1871, by Charles Scribner's Sons.
OW strange the new, soft silence in the air!
So still it seemed that we could almost hear
The snowflakes, ere we saw them, drifting down
As lilies from the wall of heaven might fall —
Making the whole world beautiful and fair;
Brightening the lonely roads, the meadows sear,
The garden-beds, the hedge-briers, rough and brown,
Dancing and whirling in their voiceless mirth,
As if half wild with joy, to reach the earth.
How strange the muffled sound of song, or call,
Or echoing laughter, or faint sleigh-bells' chime!
Each heart keeps memory of such a time,
When, on some winter morn, we waked to know
The first sweet noiseless advent of the snow.
'LYING through the cloudy sea
Out of soft gray mystery,
Lightly, lightly resting,
On the old elm nesting,
Hanging from the hemlock there
Like a beard of silver hair,
Molding on the lilac-tree
Petals of white purity,
Changing to a lovely frieze
Ancient weeds forlorn and gray
Shivering along the way —
So the snow comes down.
With a touch like a caress,
Forming fairy palaces —
Arch and pillar lifting
By its airy drifting;
Wreathing marble portico.
With white roses hanging low,
Curving Oriental eaves
Rich with curious carven leaves,
Building pinnacle and spire
For the sunset; fasing the
In soft steadites 1.g
Flake by fake the mst earth thing
So the soov times doTE
ANNOUNCED BY ng o'er the fields,
NNOUNCED by all the trumpets of the sky,
Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north-wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work:
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