# Littell's Living Age/Volume 128/Issue 1650/Winter

* WINTER
* I.
* Blue-green firs waver in a water wan,
* Save where red boles and robes unmoved and dim
* Show the keen wizard Frost prevails upon
* Even rivers; a low clink bewrays a slim
* Bird who hath lighted on the marge to drink.
* Aerial webs invisible, that link
* Sere russet fern with glumes of yellow grass,
* And green fir-needles, are palpable star-chains
* Of fairy jewels; from furze points they pass;
* Every dark green lance of broom sustains
* Like burden; all are fledged with crystal soft,
* Mist frozen in plumelets; many a taper tuft
* Adorns the wine-stained bramble, and the blade,
* And bronzy twigs of trees bereft of shade.
* II.
* Brakes white with frost, and orange reeds are fair.
* Beneath yon sombre masses of cold firs.
* Stream-mirrored, while a silver birch's hair
* Hangs, like dark smoke, athwart the leaden air.
* Winter upon small marish pools confers.
* As on our panes, with palms and wreaths of hers,
* A delicate starflower beauty, rivalling
* All fragile water-petals of sweet spring:
* Sprinkles wine-dark ferruginous fens and ling,
* Desolate lowlands where the bittern booms.
* And now at nightfall, from where forest looms,
* A dragon train wails 'thwart the solitude
* Flame-breathing, with a long self-luminous brood.
* And livid long low steam among grey glooms.
* III.
* Snow falls — hath fallen — all the land is white.
* Pure snow clings frozen to labyrinths of trees:
* They in a narrow lane aloft unite;
* Winter hath clothed with a pure foliage these,
* Pitying them, bereft of spring's delight.
* How fairylike their veiled pale silences!
* Feathery shadows a grey mist informing
* With beauty, as frail corallines dim sea.
* Some alien planet our earth seems to be!
* Earth lies fair in her shroud and slumbereth;
* So fair the pure white silence of dim death!
* Lo! the sun's fleeting phantom faintly warming
* Mists into heaven's blue, while they flush and flee:
* Budding birchsprays hang laughing jewelry
* Of opal ice athwart the lift that clears;
* Clinking it falls, or melts in jubilant tears.
* IV.
* Gaily snow flounces earthward in the sun,
* Or frozen glisters with an icy edge
* To windward of the elmbole; birds in dun
* Plumage, fair-formed elves, whistle in the hedge,
* Scatter its ermine mantle; as they run,
* Dint earth's blithe stainless carpet; shake the foam
* Splashed upon all green brambles, and red-fruited
* Hollies, or thorns, or briars, where they roam;
* Our ever sweet-songed robin richly suited,
* And birds reserving for a leafier home
* And lovelier lands the voice wherein love luted,
* Erewhile in yon dead summer: shadows blue
* Nestle where beast or man hath trodden deep
* In crisp-starred snow; fur mantles fair endue
* Thatched roof, wain, barn and byre, and slowly creep
* To a fringe of diamond icicle: the waters are asleep.
* No skaters whirr and whirl, as erst, upon the imprisoned grey
* Smooth water; no chubby children slide and shout and play.
* Pile the illumining logs within, and let them crackle gay!
* Bright holly and green mistletoe cheering our hearths we keep:
* Warm glint the polished chairs and glasses, while yule-fires glow deep.
* But when dear babes lie dreaming, with a halo near the moon,
* And at their nursery doors are set small fairy-appealing shoon.
* There will float a voice of mystic bells over earth's pale swound,
* And sweet sad fays of memory to haunt us in their sound!
* Roden Noel.
* Good Words.