Behold the young, the rosy spring,
Give to the breeze her scented wing,
While virgin graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way.
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languished into silent sleep.
And mark! the flitting sea birds lave
Their plumes in their reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly
To flutter in a kinder sky.
Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away,
And cultured field and winding stream
Are freshly glittering in his beam.
Now the earth prolific swells
With leafy buds and flow'ry bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine,
Clusters bright festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see
Nursing into luxury.
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wreck of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden-drift, or sky, or sun;
The snowdrop, bearing on her radiant breast
The frozen trophy torn from winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mold,
Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darking elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky;
Oh, the snow, the beautiful snow!
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go!
Whirling about in the maddening fun,
It plays in its glee with every one.
Chasing,
Laughing,
It lights on the face and it sparkles the eye,
And the dogs, with a bark and a bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around;
The town's alive, and his heart is aglow
To welcome the coming of beautiful snow!
Too wicked for prayer, too weak for a moan
To be heard in the streets of the crazy town,
Gone mad in the joy of the snow coming down,
To lie, and so die in my terrible woe,
With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snow.
THE SNOW STORM.
Unwarned by any sunset light,
The gray day darkened into night;
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm;
As zigzag wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the winged snow;
And ere the early bedtime came,
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
So all night long the storm roared on;
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of nature's geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of firmament;
No clouds above, no earth below,
A universe of sky and snow:
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvelous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden wall, or belt of wood.
Behold the young, the rosy spring,
Give to the breeze her scented wing,
While virgin graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way.
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languished into silent sleep.
And mark! the flitting sea birds lave
Their plumes in their reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly
To flutter in a kinder sky.
Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away,
And cultured field and winding stream
Are freshly glittering in his beam.
Now the earth prolific swells
With leafy buds and flow'ry bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine,
Clusters bright festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see
Nursing into luxury.
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wreck of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden-drift, or sky, or sun;
The snowdrop, bearing on her radiant breast
The frozen trophy torn from winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mold,
Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darking elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky;
On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;
The house-fly, stealing from his narrow grave,
Drugged with the opiate that November gave,
Beats with faint wing against the snowy pane,
Or crawls tenacious o'er its lucid plain;
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls
In languid curves the gliding serpent crawls;
The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep,
Twangs a hoarse note, and tries a shortened leap.
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