Poems (Trask)/In the Snow

by Clara Augusta Jones Trask

IN THE SNOW.

Silent the world lies 'neath a steel-blue sky;
 The winds are still in the old creaking pines,—
The oak-tree lifts its brawny arms on high,
 Crowned and festooned by cream-white flowering vines.

The English poplar stands up grim and brown,
 A patriarchal giant bravely bold,
With long white hair, and royal ermine gown,
 Like some Lord Magistrate in times of old.

The gate-posts, tipped and plumed like grenadiers,
 Stand sentinels in silence stern and grave;
The knotted well-sweep its gaunt length uprears,
 Chiselled, and carved, a marble architrave.

The well is lost,—the road is blotted out;
 Waist-high, the drifts shut in the farm-house door;
The brushy woodpile has been put to rout,
 Subdued and shrouded, it is seen no more.

Crystal stalactites hang from all the eaves,
 The clapboard nails rejoice in silver tips;
Curtains of lace, with pearl-embroidered leaves,
 Wrap all the windows in their pale eclipse.

Twigs that were only poor sticks yesterday
 To-night's magician into pearls has turned;
The spruces wear the soft robes of a fay,
 The pines a right to diamond sprays have earned.

The grape-vine arbor boasts its ivory bars;
 The trellises with icy cones are bright;
The hawthorn hedge is flecked with glittering stars,
 And all the garden's stately flowers are white.

The brook has closed its song and gone to sleep
 Beneath its coverlet of fleecy white;
The smothered river, rolling dark and deep,
 Is mute and silent as the dumb-mouthed Night.

There is a hush o'er all things that we view;
 A dead white silence rests on all below;
The pale moon slowly sails the dark clouds through,—
 Below, the earth is buried in the snow.