The Frost And let his weird and sleety beard And, rustling, chime to the tinkling rime Let his baleful breath shed blight and death On herb and flower and tree; And brooks and ponds in crystal bonds Bind fast, but what care we? 1343 Let him push at the door,-in the chimney roar, And rattle the window-pane; Let him in at us spy with his icicle eye, But he shall not entrance gain. Let him gnaw, forsooth, with his freezing tooth, On our roof-tiles, till he tire; But we care not a whit, as we jovial sit Come, lads, let's sing, till the rafters ring; From our snug fire-side this Christmas-tide We'll keep old Winter out. Thomas Noel [1799-1861] THE FROST THE Frost looked forth, one still, clear night, I will not go like that blustering train, The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain, Then he went to the mountain, and powdered its crest, He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he dressed With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast Of the quivering lake he spread A coat of mail, that it need not fear He went to the windows of those who slept, Most beautiful things. There were flowers and trees, There were cities, thrones, temples, and towers, and these But he did one thing that was hardly fair,— Hannah Flagg Gould [1789-1865] THE FROSTED PANE ONE night came Winter noiselessly and leaned In the deep stillness of his heart convened The ghosts of all his slain. Leaves, and ephemera, and stars of earth, And fugitives of grass, White spirits loosed from bonds of mortal birth, He drew them on the glass. Charles G. D. Roberts [1860 THE FROST SPIRIT He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! You may trace his footsteps now On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the brown hill's withered brow. The Frost Spirit 1345 He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees where their pleasant green came forth, And the winds, which follow wherever he goes, have shaken them down to earth. He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! from the frozen Labrador, From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which the white bear wanders o'er, Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice and the luckless forms below In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues grow! He comes, he comes,-the Frost Spirit comes! on the rushing Northern blast, And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful breath went past. With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires of Hecla glow On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below. He comes, he comes, the Frost Spirit comes! and the quiet lake shall feel The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the skater's heel; And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang to the leaning grass, Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful silence pass. He comes, he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes! Let us meet him as we may, And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power away; And gather closer the circle round, when that firelight dances high, And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding wing goes by! John Greenleaf Whittier [1807–1892] SNOW Lo, what wonders the day hath brought, Born of the soft and slumbrous snow! Hanging garlands the eaves o'erbrim, With a whirl of dancing, dazzling snow. Dimly out of the baffled sight Houses and church-spires stretch away; The trees, all spectral and still and white, Stand up like ghosts in the failing light, And fade and faint with the blinded day. Down from the roofs in gusts are hurled The eddying drifts to the waste below; Slowly the shadows gather and fall, Still the whispering snow-flakes beat; Night and darkness are over all: Rest, pale city, beneath their pall! Sleep, white world, in thy winding-sheet! Clouds may thicken, and storm-winds breathe: Peace and I are at home, at home! Elizabeth Akers (1832-1911] The Snow-Shower TO A SNOW-FLAKE WHAT heart could have thought of you?— Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapor? "God was my shaper. Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapor, To lust of His mind: Thou couldst not have thought me! So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost." 1347 Francis Thompson [1859?-1907] THE SNOW-SHOWER STAND here by my side and turn, I pray, They sink in the dark and silent lake. See how in a living swarm they come From the chambers beyond that misty veil; Some hover in air awhile, and some Rush prone from the sky like summer hail. |