The children in bewildering delight. There is a living glory in the air,- A glory in the hushed air, in the soul A palpitating wonder hushed in awe.
Softly-with delicate softness-as the light Quickens in the undawned east; and silentlyWith definite silence-as the stealing dawn Dapples the floating clouds, slow fall, slow fall, With indecisive motion eddying down,
The white-winged flakes,-calm as the sleep of sound,
Dim as a dream. The silver-misted air Shines with mild radiance, as when through a cloud
Of semilucent vapor shines the moon.
I saw last evening (when the ruddy sun, Enlarged and strange, sank low and visibly, Spreading fierce orange o'er the west) a scene Of winter in his milder mood. Green fields, Which no kine cropped, lay damp; and naked trees
Threw skeleton shadows. Hedges, thickly grown,
Twined into compact firmness, with no leaves, Trembled in jewelled fretwork as the sun To lustre touched the tremulous water-drops. Alone, nor whistling as his fellows do In fabling poem and provincial song,
Christmas Weather in Scotland.
The ploughboy shouted to his reeking train; And at the clamor, from a neighboring field Arose, with whirr of wings, a flock of rooks ore clam Morous; and through the frosted air, Blown wildly here and there without a law, They flew, low-grumbling out loquacious croaks. Red sunset brightened all things; streams ran red Yet coldly; and before the unwholesome east, Searching the bones and breathing ice, blew down
The hill, with a dry whistle, by the fire In chamber twilight rested I at home.
But now what revelation of fair change, O Giver of the seasons and the days! Creator of all elements, pale mists, Invisible great winds and exact frost! How shall I speak the wonder of thy snow? What though we know its essence and its birth, Can quick expound, in philosophic wise, The how, and whence, and manner of its fall; Yet, oh, the inner beauty and the life- The life that is in snow! The virgin-soft And utter purity of the down-flake, Falling upon its fellow with no sound!
Unblown by vulgar winds, innumerous flakes Fall gently, with the gentleness of love! The earth is cherished, for beneath the soft, Pure uniformity is gently born
Warmth and rich mildness, fitting the dead roots For the resuscitation of the spring.
Now while I write, the wonder clothes the vale,
Calmed every wind and loaded every grove; And looking through the implicated boughs I see a gleaming radiance. Sparkling snow, Refined by morning-footed frost so still,
Mantles each bough; and such a windless hush Breathes through the air, it seems the fairy glen
About some phantom palace, pale abode Of fabled Sleeping Beauty. Songless birds Flit restlessly about the breathless wood, Waiting the sudden breaking of the charm; And as they quickly spring on nimble wing From the white twig, a sparkling shower falls Starlike. It is not whiteness, but a clear Outshining of all purity, which takes
The winking eyes with such a silvery gleam. No sunshine, and the sky is all one cloud. The vale seems lonely, ghostlike; while aloud The housewife's voice is heard with doubled sound.
I have not words to speak the perfect show; The ravishment of beauty; the delight Of silent purity; the sanctity
Of inspiration which o'erflows the world, Making it breathless with divinity.
Christmas Weather in Scotland.
So thus with fair delapsion softly falls The sacred shower; and when the shortened day Dejected dies in the low streaky west,
The rising moon displays a cold blue night, And keen as steel the east wind sprinkles ice. Thicker than bees, about the waxing moon Gather the punctual stars. Huge whitened hills Rise glimmering to the blue verge of the night, Ghostlike, and striped with narrow glens of firs Black-waving, solemn. O'er the Luggie-stream Gathers a veiny film of ice, and creeps
With elfin feet around each stone and reed, Working fine masonry; while o'er the dam, Dashing, a noise of waters fills the clear And nitrous air. All the dark, wintry hours Sharply the winds from the white level moors Keen whistle. Timorous in his homely bed The school-boy listens, fearful lest gaunt wolves Or beasts, whose uncouth forms in ancient books He has beheld, at creaking shutters pull Howling. And when at last the languid dawn In wind redness re-illumines the east With ineffectual fire, an intense blue Severely vivid o'er the snowy hills.
Gleams chill, while hazy, half-transparent clouds Slow-range the freezing ether of the west. Along the woods the keenly vehement blasts Wail, and disrobe the mantled boughs, and fling A snow-dust everywhere. Thus wears the day:
While grandfather over the well-watched fire Hangs cowering, with a cold drop at his nose.
Now underneath the ice the Luggie growls, And to the polished smoothness curlers come Rudely ambitious. Then for happy hours The clinking stones are slid from wary hands, And Barleycorn, best wine for surly airs, Bites i' th' mouth, and ancient jokes are cracked. And oh, the journey homeward, when the
Low-rounding to the west, in ruddy glow Sinks large, and all the amber-skirted clouds, His flaming retinue, with dark'ning glow Diverge! The broom is brandished as the sign Of conquest, and impetuously they boast
Of how this shot was played,—with what a bend
Peculiar the perfection of all art
That stone came rolling grandly to the Tee With victory crowned, and flinging wide the
In lordly crash! Within the village inn They by the roaring chimney sit, and quaff The beaded Usqueba with sugar dashed. O, when the precious liquid fires the brain. To joy, and every heart beats fast with mirth And ancient fellowship, what nervy grasps Of horny hands o'er tables of rough oak!
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