46 A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 



Et producit acu stupas humore carentes, 

 Excitat et crebris languentem flatibus ignem ; 

 Tandem concepto tenebrse fulgore recedunt, 

 Oppositaque manu lumen defendit ab aura.&quot; 



&quot; With cautious hand he gropes the sluggish dark, 

 Tracking the hearth which, scorched, he feels erelong. 

 In burnt-out logs a slender smoke remained, 

 And raked-up ashes hid the cinders eyes ; 

 Stooping, to these the lamp outstretched he nears, 

 And, with a needle loosening the dry wick, 

 With frequent breath excites the languid flame. 

 Before the gathering glow the shades recede, 

 And his bent hand the new-caught light defends.&quot; 



Ovid heightens the picture by a single touch : 



&quot; Ipse genu posito flammas exsuscitat aura.&quot; 

 11 Kneeling, his breath calls back to life the flames.&quot; 



If you walk down now into the woods, you may find a 

 robin or a blue-bird among the red-cedars, or a nuthatch 

 scaling deviously the trunk of some hardwood tree with an 

 eye as keen as that of a French soldier foraging for the pot- 

 au-jeu of his mess. Perhaps a blue-jay shrills cah cah in his 

 corvine trebles, or a chickadee 



&quot; Shows feats of his gymnastic play, 

 Head downward, clinging to the spray.&quot; 



But both him and the snow-bird I love better to see, tiny 

 fluffs of feathered life, as they scurry about in a driving mist 

 of snow, than in this serene air. 



Coleridge has put into verse one of the most beautiful 

 phenomena of a winter walk : 



&quot; The woodman winding westward up the glen 

 At wintry dawn, where o er the sheep-track s maze 

 The viewless snow-mist weaves a glistening haze, 

 Sees full before him, gliding without tread, 

 An image with a halo round its head.&quot; 



But this aureole is not peculiar to winter. I have noticed it 

 often in a summer morning, when the grass was heavy with 

 dew, and even later in the day, when the dewless grass was 

 still fresh enough to have a gleam of its own. 



