existence that inflicts itself on our ears when the ground is bare. The earth is clothed in innocence as a garment. Every wound of the landscape is healed; whatever was stiff has been sweetly rounded as the breast of Aphrodite; what was unsightly has been covered gently with a soft splendour, as if, Cowley would have said, Nature had cleverly let fall her handkerchief to hide it. If the Virgin (Nôtre Dame de la Neige) were to come back, here is an earth that would not bruise her foot, nor stain it. It is "The fanned snow That's bolted by the northern blasts twice o'er ;- Winnowed and packed by the Sclavonian winds," packed so hard sometimes on hill-slopes that it will bear your weight. What grace is in all the curves, as if every one of them had been swept by that inspired thumb of Phidias's journeyman. J. R. Lowell. Winter O WINTER, ruler of th' inverted year, Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled, Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fringed with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds, A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne But urged by storms along its slipp'ry way, I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st And dreaded as thou art! Thou hold'st the sun William Cowper. To a Snowflake HAT heart could have thought of you? WHAT Past our devisal (O filigree petal !) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you, "God was my shaper. Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapour, To lust of His mind : Thou couldst not have thought me ! So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost." Francis Thompson. The Snow-Walkers HE who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter. It is true the pomp and the pageantry are swept away, but the essential elements remain, the day and the night, the mountain and the valley, the elemental play and succession and the perpetual presence of the infinite sky. In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of more exalted simplicity. Summer is more wooing and seductive, more versatile and human, appeals to the affections and the sentiments, and fosters inquiry and the art impulse. more heroic cast, and addresses the severe studies and disciplines come easier in the winter. One imposes larger tasks upon himself, and is less tolerant of his own weaknesses. Winter is of a intellect. The The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter: the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to Literature, summer the tissues and the blood. The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after such a career of splendour and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquetand the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread. John Burroughs. The Winter Glass THEN let the chill Sirocco blow, And gird us round with hills of snow; Or else go whistle to the shore, And make the hollow mountains roar. Whilst we together jovial sit Careless, and crown'd with mirth and wit; Where though bleak winds confine us home, Our fancies round the world shall roam. We'll think of all the friends we know, But where friends fail us, we'll supply We'll drink the wanting into wealth, The worthy in disgrace shall find The brave shall triumph in success, |