To A Snowflake

What heart could have thought you? —

Past our devisal

(O filigree petal!)

Fashioned so purely,

Fragilely, surely,

From what Paradisal

Imagineless metal,

Too costly for cost?

Who hammered you, wrought you,

From argentine vapor? —

"God was my shaper.

Passing surmisal,

He hammered, He wrought me,

From curled silver vapor,

To lust of His mind —

Thou could'st not have thought me!

So purely, so palely,

Tinily, surely,

Mightily, frailly,

Insculped and embossed,

With His hammer of wind,

And His graver of frost."