CLEAR FROST IN WINTER 149 



From pole to pole the rigid influence falls through 

 the still night, incessant, heavy, strong, and seizes 

 Nature fast. It freezes on, till morn, late rising o'er 

 the drooping world, lifts her pale eye unjoyous. Then 

 appears the various labour of the silent night : prone 

 from the dripping cave and dumb cascade, whose idle 

 torrents only seem to roar, the pendent icicle ; the 



so frost-work fair, where transient hues and fancied 

 figures rise; wide-spouted o'er the hill the frozen 

 brook, a livid track, cold-gleaming on the morn ; the 

 forest, bent beneath the plumy wave; and, by the 

 frost refined, the whiter snow, incrusted hard, and 

 sounding to the tread of early shepherd as he pensive 

 seeks his pining flock, or from the mountain-top, 

 pleased with the slippery surface, swift descends. 



On blithesome frolics bent, the youthful swains, 

 while every work of man is laid at rest, fond o'er the 



r,o river crowd, in various sport and revelry dissolved ; 

 and, as they sweep on sounding skates a thousand 

 different ways, in circling poise, swift as the winds 

 along, the now gay land is maddened all to joy. Eager 

 on rapid sleds the vigorous youth in bold conten- 

 tion wheel their sounding course ; and, mixing glad, 

 happiest of all the train, the raptured boy lashes the 

 whirling top. 



Pure, quick, and sportful is the wholesome day ; but 

 soon elapsed. The horizontal sun broad o'er the south 



70 hangs at his utmost noon, and ineffectual strikes the 

 gelid cliff. His azure gloss the mountain still main- 

 tains, nor feels the feeble touch; perhaps the vale 

 relents awhile to the reflected ray ; or from the forest 

 falls the clustered snow, in myriad gems that, in the 

 waving gleam, gay-twinkle as they scatter. Mean- 



