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JANUARY. THE FALLING SNOW.

JANUARY.

WINTER, now hastening to possess for bride

The earth left widowed by bright Summer dead, Bestows on her snow-robes of whitest pride,

Replacing weeds of Autumn withered;
Thus, through his bounty, being newly dressed,
That she may shine, his bride indeed confessed.

Now will she wail not for her former spouse,

No more compare his sunlit smile most sweet With the dark gloom o'erspreading Winter's brows, His breath of coldness and his robes of sleet; Whiles he, as jealous of the dead's past mirth, Lays his effacing garb upon the earth.

The sedge-bound brook that, in the summer days,
Babbling and sparkling surged an amorous song,
Winter has prisoned with an ice-cold gaze,
And silently he creeps his banks along;
Condemned to muteness sullenly doth roll,
And in sad silence vexes out his soul.

Manhattan Magazine, January, 1883.

THE FALLING SNOW.

I SEE a straggling, dim procession pass

Of shrugging, shadowy shapes that come and go; I sit and watch through clouded panes of glass, Through gauzy curtains of the falling snow.

"WE LIKE THE WINTER AND ITS SNOWS."

The fairy phantoms of the peopled air

Come softly gliding to the earth below; I sit and list, I list in vain, to hear

The feathery footfall of the falling snow.

No sound, save now and then a muffled hoof
And muffled wheel. And, in the silence, lo,
I sit and worship 'neath my whitening roof!
The world keeps sabbath for the falling snow.

White wings are fluttering all around to-day,
Unseen, unheard, the loved of long ago!

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Alas! why miss and mourn I, more than they,
The forms that rest beneath the falling snow?
CHARLES GORDON AMES.

"WE LIKE THE WINTER AND ITS SNOWS."

BALLADE.

WHEN we were children we would say,·
"I like the coming of the Spring,
I like the violets of May,

I like, why, almost everything

That March and May and April bring." But now we value less the rose,

And care not when the birds take wing. We like the Winter and its snows.

For Springtime cannot always stay,
And song-birds do not always sing;

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BEVERLY SHORE IN WINTER.

The Summer passes swift away,
And Autumn tree leaves weakly cling.
So when we sit here listening
To every fitful wind that blows,
And see the white land glistening,
We like the Winter and its snows.

Who would not in the fountain's spray
His heavy cares be glad to fling,
If life were all a summer day

And green boughs bent for us to swing!
But roses bear sharp thorns that sting,
And yesterday the fountain froze,

So while the winds are whistling
We like the Winter and its snows.

ENVOY.

Prince, you and I are glad to ring
Our changes on the youth that goes,
And laugh while we are shivering,
"We like the Winter and its snows."

JAMES BERRY Bensel.

BEVERLY SHORE IN WINTER.

THE bittern hies,

In lazy flight,

Where starshine lies

O'er moorlands white,

And shakes new fear from ghostly night.

BEVERLY SHORE IN WINTER.

The reeds hang stiff

By many a stream,

The sailing skiff

Sails like a dream,

And prayers go up beneath the gleam.

Rude falls the wave

On shingles cold,

And foam-beads lave

The forests old,

And break and die on their dark mould.

In pools like stone,
So still and bright,

The stork alone,

Like an anchorite,

Tells to himself his dreamy rite.

No cloud is strewn
O'er the frozen sky;

To a spirit tune

Their lullaby

The oaks around chant dismally.

Not a living man
Moves on the moor;
No soul that can

Opes now the door,

But silent fear haunts the wild shore.

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