64

SEA-MEWS IN WINTER TIME.

"The sea is cold, and dark its rim,
Winter sits cowering on the wold,
And I beside this watery brim,
Am also lonely, also cold."

I spoke, and drew toward a rock,

Where many mews made twittering sweet; Their wings upreared, the clustering flock Did pat the sea-grass with their feet.

A rock but half submerged, the sea
Ran up and washed it while they fed;
Their fond and foolish ecstacy

A wondering in my fancy bred.

Joy companied with every cry,

Joy in their food, in that keen wind, That heaving sea, that shaded sky,

And in themselves, and in their kind.

The phantoms of the deep at play!

What idlesse graced the twittering things; Luxurious paddlings in the spray, And delicate lifting up of wings.

Then all at once a flight, and fast

The lovely crowd flew out to sea;

If mine own life had been recast,

Earth had not looked more changed to me.

WINTER NIGHT.

"Where is the cold? Yon clouded skies
Have only dropt their curtains low
To shade the old mother where she lies
Sleeping a little, 'neath the snow.

“The cold is not in crag, nor scar,
Not in the snows that lap the lea,
Not in yon wings that beat afar,
Delighting, on the crested sea;

"No, nor in yon exultant wind

That shakes the oak and bends the pine.
Look near, look in, and thou shalt find
No sense of cold, fond fool, but thine!"

With that I felt the gloom depart,

And thoughts within me did unfold, Whose sunshine warmed me to the heart, I walked in joy, and was not cold.

65

JEAN INGELOW.

WINTER NIGHT.

(FROM THE GERMAN OF NICHOLAS LENAU.)

BENUMBED with cold the windless air;

Beneath my footsteps cracks the snow;

My breath smokes through my beard's crisp hair; But onward, onward still I go.

How solemnly the fields are hushed!
The moonlight tips the ancient pines,
Which yearn for death; while, downward c
Back unto earth the bough inclines.

Frost, freeze my very heart's core fast, Where hot fierce passions burn and bligh That rest may enter there at last,

As in these tranquil fields of night.

WINTER.

EMMA

I.

BLUE-GREEN firs waver in a water wan

Save where red boles and robes unmoved an
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 bla
And bronzy twigs of trees bereft of shade.

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, rivaling

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 trail 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 an 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 hed
Scatter its ermine mantle; as they run,
Dint earth's blithe stainless carpet; shake the
Splashed upon all green brambles, and red-fr
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 lute
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
To a fringe of diamond icicle: the waters are a
No skaters whirr and whirl, as erst upon the in
oned grey

Smooth water: no chubby children slide and and play.

Pile the illumining logs within, and let them cr

gay!

Bright holly and green mistletoe cheering

hearths we keep: