FROST.

White artist he, who, breezeless nights,

From tingling stars jocosely whirls,

A harlequin in spangled tights,

His wand a pot of pounded pearls.

The field a hasty pallet; for,

In thin or thick, with daub and streak,

It stretches from the barn-gate's bar

To the bleached ribbon of the creek.

A great geometer is he;

For, on the creek's diaphanous silk,

Sphere, cone, and star exquisitely

He's drawn in crystal lines of milk.

Most delicate, his talent keen

On casement panes he lavishes,

In many a Lilliputian scene

Of vague white hives and milky bees,

That sparkling in still swarms delight,

Or bow the jeweled bells of flowers;—

Of dim, deep landscapes of the night,

Hanging down limpid domes quaint showers

Of feathery stars and meteors

Above an upland's glimmering ways,

Where gambol‘ neath the feverish stars

The erl-king and the fleecy fays.

Or last, one arabesque of ferns,

Chrysanthemums and mistletoe,

And death-pale roses bunched in urns

That with an innate glory glow.

In leafless woodlands saturnine,

Where reckless winds, like goblins mad,

Screech swinging in each barren vine,

His wagship shapes a lesson sad:

When slyly touched by his white hand

Of Midas-magic, forests old

Dariuses of pomp then stand

Barbaric-crowned with living gold....

Patrician state, plebeian blood

Soon foster sybarites, and they,

Squand'ring their riches, wood by wood,

Die palsied wrecks debauched and gray.