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.