The Winter Night

'T is the high festival of night!
The earth is radiant with delight;
And, fast as weary day retires,
The heaven unfolds its secret fires,
Bright, as when first the firmament
Around the new-made world was bent,
And infant seraphs pierced the blue,
Till rays of heaven came shining through.
And mark the heaven's reflected glow
On many an icy plain below;
And where the streams, with tinkling clash,
Against their frozen barriers dash,
Like fairy lances fleetly cast,
The glittering ripples hurry past;
And floating sparkles glance afar,
Like rivals of some upper star.
And see, beyond, how sweetly still
The snowy moonlight wraps the hill,
And many an aged pine receives
The steady brightness on its leaves,
Contrasting with those giant forms,
Which, rifled by the winter storms,
With naked branches, broad and high,
Are darkly painted on the sky.
From every mountain's towering head
A white and glistening robe is spread,
As if a melted silver tide
Were gushing down its lofty side;
The clear, cold lustre of the moon
Is purer than the burning noon;
And day hath never known the charm
That dwells amid this evening calm.
The idler, on his silken bed,
May talk of nature, cold and dead;
But we will gaze upon this scene,
Where some transcendent power hath been,
And made these streams of beauty flow
In gladness on the world below,
Till nature breathes from every part
The rapture of her mighty heart.