Warm glint the polished chairs and glasses, while
But when dear babes lie dreaming, with a halo near
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
RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL.
FROM this dull rainy undersky and low,
This murky ending of a leaden day,
That never knew the sun, this half-thawed snow,
These tossing black boughs faint against the gray
Of gathering night, thou turnest, dear, away
Silent but with thy scarce-seen kindly smile
Sent through the dusk my longing to beguile.
There, the lights gleam, and all is dark without!
And in the sudden change our eyes meet dazed,
O look, love, look again! the veil of doubt
Just for one flash, past counting, then was raised!
O eyes of heaven, as clear thy sweet soul blazed
On mine a moment! O come back again
Strange rest and dear amid the long dull pain!
A DREAM OF SUMMER.
"Nay, nay, gone by! though there she sitteth still,
With wide gray eyes so frank and fathomless,
Be patient, heart, thy days they yet shall fill
With utter rest—yea, now thy pain they bless,
And feed thy last hope of the world's redress-
O unseen hurrying rack! O wailing wind
What rest and where go ye this night to find?
WILLIAM MORRIS.
The Earthly Paradise.
A DREAM OF SUMMER.
BLAND as the morning breath of June
The southwest breezes play;
And, through its haze, the winter noon
Seems warm as summer's day.
The snow-plumed Angel of the North.
Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.
The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
The musk-rat leaves his nook,
The bluebird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
“Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
"Our winter voices prophesy
Of summer days to thee!"
So, in those winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear
O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear.
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And how beneath the winter's snow
Lie germs of summer flowers!
The Night is mother of the Day,
The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay
The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all His works
Has left His hope with all!
THE speckled sky is dim with snow,
The light flakes falter and fall slow ;
Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
Silently drops a silvery veil;
The far-off mountain's misty form
Is entering now a tent of storm;
And all the valley is shut in
By flickering curtains gray and thin.
But cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree;
The snow sails round him, as he sings,
White as the down of angels' wings.
I watch the slow flakes as they fall
On bank and brier and broken wall;
Over the orchard, waste and brown,
All noiselessly they settle down,
Tipping the apple-boughs, and each
Light quivering twig of plum and peach
On turf and curb and bower-roof
The snow storm spreads its ivory woof;
It paves with pearl the garden walk;
And lovingly round tattered stalk
And shivering stem its magic weaves
A mantle fair as lily-leaves.
The hooded beehive, small and low,
Stands like a maiden in the snow;
And the old door-slab is half hid
Under an alabaster lid.
All day it snows: the sheeted post
Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;
All day the blasted oak has stood
A muffled wizard of the wood;
Garland and airy cap adorn
The sumach and the wayside thorn,
MIDWINTER IN THE PUBLIC GARDEN.
And clustering spangles lodge and shine
In the dark tresses of the pine.
The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,
Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;
In surplice white the cedar stands,
And blesses him with priestly hands.
Still cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree:
But in my inmost ear is heard
The music of a holier bird;
And heavenly thoughts, as soft and white
As snowflakes, on my soul alight,
Clothing with love my lonely heart,
Healing with peace each bruisèd part,
Till all my being seems to be
Transfigured by their purity.
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
MIDWINTER IN THE PUBLIC GARDEN.
It was a winter's night.
The little stars peeped out to look about,
Then hid their eyes, it was so bright.
So white, and clear, and still;
The fairy globes they hung, the trees among;
The little stars could gaze their fill.
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