Show r Y t A A WINTER PICTURE t By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL r J This exquisite p piece of o wo word d painting paloU Is la from the th Vision Violo of o 51 Sir L v l 1 t. t i. i rt ff tt r 7 Fi ff 6 p r. r l t c I i 1 OWN swept the chill wind from the mountain peak From the snow five thousand housand summers old On open wold VoId and hilltop bleak It had gathered all the co cold d And whirled It like sleet on the w wanderers wanderer's cheek It carried a shiver everywhere From the boughs and pastures bare The little brook heard it and built a roof Neath which h he c could ld house him Winter proof All night by the white stars' stars frosty gleams Slender and clear were his crystal spars As the lashes of light that trim the stars He sculptured every summer delight I Sometimes his tinkling water Down through a leaved frost-leaved forest crypt Long sparkling aisles of steel stemmed steel stemmed trees Bending to counterfeit a br breeze eze I Sometimes the roof roof roof-no no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that downward grew v Sometimes it was carved in sharp re relief i f With quaint arabesques of ice-fern ice leaf Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear For the gladness of Heaven to shine through and here her He had caught the nodding bulrush tops And hung them thickly with diamond drops That the beams of moon and sun sun And made a star of every one No mortal builders builder's most rare device Could match this winter palace of ice as if every im Image age that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer summer day Each fie fleeting shadow of earth and sky Lest the happy model should b be lost Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost |