Part 7

Now above the loaded wain, Now beneath the thundering train, Doth she hear the sweet bells tinkle and the snorting engine blow; Now she flutters on the breeze, Till the branches of the trees Catch the tossed and tangled tresses of the Spirit of the Snow.

Now an infant’s balmy breath Gives the Spirit seeming death, When adown her pallid features fair, Decay’s damp dew-drops flow; Now, again her strong assault Can make an army halt, And trench itself in terror ’gainst the Spirit of the Snow.

At times, with gentle power, In visiting some bower, She scarce will hide the holly’s red, the blackness of the sloe; But ah! her awful might, When down some Alpine hight The hapless hamlet sinks before the Spirit of the Snow.

On a feather she floats down The turbid rivers brown,— Down to meet the drifting navies of the winter-freighted foe; Then swift o’er the azure walls Of the awful waterfalls, Where Niagara leaps roaring, glides the Spirit of the Snow.

With her flag of truce unfurled, She makes peace o’er all the world,— Makes bloody battle cease awhile, and war’s unpitying woe; Till its hollow womb within The deep-mouthed culverin Incloses, like a cradled child, the Spirit of the Snow.

In her spotless linen hood, Like the other sisterhood, She braves the open cloister where the psalm sounds sweet and low, When some sister’s bier doth pass From the minster and the mass, Soon to sink into the earth, like the Spirit of the Snow.

But at times so full of joy, She will play with girl and boy, Fly from out their tingling fingers, like white fire-balls on the foe; She will burst in feathery flakes; And the ruin that she makes Will but wake the crackling laughter of the Spirit of the Snow.

Or, in furry mantle dressed, She will fondle on her breast The embryo buds awaiting the near Spring’s mysterious throe So fondly that the first Of the blossoms that outburst Will be called the beauteous daughter of the Spirit of the Snow.

Ah! would that we were sure Of hearts so warmly pure, In all the winter weather that this lesser life must know; That when shines the Sun of Love From a warmer realm above, In its life we may dissolve, like the Spirit of the Snow.

Dublin University Magazine.

BEAUTY.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.—Ecclesiastes 3:11.

Snow is the adornment of winter. Its beauty is a compensation for the loss of the flowers and foliage of the milder seasons. When Nature has put off her green robes, when the fields have become bare, the streams and lakes ice-bound, and the hum of the bees and the songs of the birds are no longer heard, then God opens his treasure-house and brings forth jewels for the coronation of the year. He throws over the earth a robe of purest white, he festoons each shrub and tree with diamonds and pearls, and bids every beholder rejoice in these manifestations of his skill. For all the beauty of the earth is but the outward expression of the beauty which dwells eternal in the Divine Mind. Each six-leaved blossom of winter had its pattern in his thought before it was created; and all the diversities of its forms show the wealth of his resources even in the smallest things. So God has not left himself “without witness” for a single season. Each has its message from heaven, unfolding his glories, and bidding man behold and adore.

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All the roofs are blanketed with snow; all the fences are bordered. Every gate-post is statuesque; every wood-pile is a marble quarry. Harshest outlines are softened. Instead of angles and ruggedness and squalor, there are billowy, fleecy undulations. Nothing so rough, so common, so ugly, but it has been transfigured into newness of life. Every where the earth has received beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Without sound of hammer or ax, without the grating of saw or the click of chisel, prose has been sculptured into poetry. The actual has put on the silver vail of the ideal.

Gail Hamilton.

It is almost impossible to paint the glory of the northern winter forests. Every tree, laden with the purest snow, resembled a Gothic fountain of bronze, covered with frozen spray, through which only suggestive glimpses of its delicate tracery could be obtained. From every side we looked over thousands of such mimic fountains, shooting low or high, from their pavements of ivory and alabaster. It was an enchanted wilderness,—white, silent, gleaming, and filled with inexhaustible forms of beauty. To what shall I liken those glimpses under the boughs, into the depths of the forest, where the snow destroyed all perspective, and brought the remotest fairy nooks and coverts, too lovely and fragile to seem cold, into the glittering foreground? “Wonderful!” “Glorious!” I could only exclaim in breathless admiration.

Bayard Taylor.

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The forests were indescribable in their silence, whiteness, and wonderful variety of snowy adornment. The weeping birches leaned over the road and formed white-fringed arches; the firs wore mantles of ermine, and muffs and tippets of the softest swan’s down. Snow, wind, and frost had wrought the most marvelous transformations. Here were kneeling nuns with their arms hanging listlessly by their sides, and the white cowls falling over their faces. There lay a warrior’s helmet; lace curtains, torn and ragged, hung from the points of little Gothic spires. Caverns, lined with sparry incrustations, silver palm-leaves, doors, loop-holes, arches, and cascades were thrown together in fantastic confusion, and mingled with the more decided forms of the larger trees, which were trees but in form, so completely were they wrapped in their dazzling disguise. It was an enchanted land, where you scarcely dared breathe, lest a breath might break the spell.

Ib.

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The new snow had fallen on the mountains, and the vast basin of the Monte Rosa chain lay before us, clothed in flowing robes of the most pure and spotless white; while every little nook and ledge, and inequality of rock on which the snow could rest, was covered with the same virgin luster, so that it looked as if the sides of the craggy mountains were flecked and dashed with spray, and as if myriads of foaming torrents were coursing down the precipices, streaking their surface with their white tracks in every direction. After we turned to the right and began the ascent, the light became stronger, and the outline sharper, and our view of the vast glacier basin more uninterrupted and clear. The valley of Macregnaga goes very far into the heart of the mountain, so that all the snowy part of Monte Rosa rises in one great mass directly above it. The sun came up, and for two or three minutes, not more, all the upper part of this vast region of snow was dyed of the deepest crimson,—not pink, as an evening view of the Alps often is; then, for much longer, it was of the most brilliant gold,—just the color of a new sovereign; and then, as the sun overtopped the lower mountains, and their shadows were no longer thrown upward, this gorgeous coloring gave place to a dazzling glare. Miles off, as we were, we could hardly look at the snowy basin without blinking.

Wills.

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There is in us a want of taste to appreciate the exquisite beauty of the snow-flakes that we tread under foot. There is a narrow selfishness which does not even inquire what are the moral or æsthetic uses of the snow; but is contented or sad to see it come upon the earth, according as it affects our arrangements and wishes. Our education has this radical defect, that it does not teach us to make the senses the instruments of our higher faculties; to study nature, to revere every thing that God makes; that it fails to form us to the highest exercises of which we are capable, and leaves us ignorant of some of the most interesting and important objects of knowledge: God,—his word, his works and ourselves.

Kirk.

Beauty.