| |
| 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; | |
| And all the valley is shut in | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| 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; | 30 |
| Garland and airy cap adorn | |
| The sumach and the wayside thorn, | |
| And clustering spangles lodge and shine | |
| In the dark tresses of the pine. | |
| |
| The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old, | 35 |
| 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: | 40 |
| But in my inmost ear is heard | |
| The music of a holier bird; | |
| And heavenly thoughts as soft and white | |
| As snow-flakes, on my soul alight, | |
| Clothing with love my lonely heart, | 45 |
| Healing with peace each bruised part, | |
| Till all my being seems to be | |
| Transfigured by their purity. | |
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