The Silver Frost

A BREATH from the tropics broke Winter's spell
With an alien rain which froze as it fell,
And ere the Orient blushed with morn
A beautiful crystal forest was born.

Blackthorn hedge and hawthorn bush
Dawned spectrally white in the first grey flush ;
Drifted from night the circling trees
As icebergs drift from northern seas.

Branch above branch, an aerial maze
Of pendulous crystals and silvery sprays !
Tree behind tree impregnable,
Where beauty, and silence, and sweet thoughts dwell !

The elm boughs bend, like a searching thought,
With their silvery weight of beauty caught.
White limbs are asleep on the misty blue skies
Like lilies on lakelets in paradise.

Daylight refulgent floods over the hills,
And the forest, conscious of beauty, thrills;
Through the mazes of fragile mimicry
The dazzling sunrays flare and flee.

Pine, elm, and maple, in icy attire,
Burn with a myriad gems of fire ;
The snow-billowed ground and the gossamer height
Are aflame with the scornful spirit of light.

Violet, orange, indigo, red,
Green, yellow, and blue from each diamond are shed
More beautiful these than the jewels of a throne,
For the forest is nature's glory and crown.

The grape-vine over the lilacs laid
Gleams like a rainbowed, tossed cascade,
And he who beholds might pause to hear
The enlivened voices of waters there.

In the Balm of Gilead and poplar's spire
Are incarnate the spirits of water and fire ;
In cedar and linden, and everywhere,
The flames of the passionless fires flare.

But wandering winds the frail boughs shake,
And rustling ripples of ruin awake,
And a myriad scintillant gems fall down,
Like thoughts transfigured of beauties flown.