The morning sun was bright on all.
Down the long slope the plough-team drove.
The tossing rooks arose and hove.

A stone struck on the 'share. A word
Came to the team. The red earth stirred.
JOHN MASEFIELD

U

LINES FROM "SNOWBOUND"

NWARMED by any sunset light The grey day darkened into night, A night made hoary with the swarm And whirlwind of the blinding storm, As zigzag, wavering to and fro, Crossed and recrossed the winged snow. And ere the early bed-time came The white drift piled the window frame, And through the dark the clothes-line posts Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on;
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,

No clouds above, no earth below,-
A universe of sky and snow!

The old familiar sights of ours

Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and

towers

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,

Or garden wall, or belt of wood;

A smooth white mound the brush pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat

With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;

And even the long sweep, high aloof,

In its slant splendor, seemed to tell

Of Pisa's leaning miracle.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

PART III

ENCHANTMENT

"A song of enchantment I sang me there
In the green, green woods by waters fair,
Just as the words came up to me,
I sang them under the wild-wood tree."

WALTER DE LA MARE