38 A GOOD WOED FOR WINTER 



Or, if ajuster fancy should allow 

 An undisputed symbol of command, 

 The chosen sceptre is a withered bough 

 Infirmly grasped within a withered hand. 

 These emblems suit the helpless and forlorn ; 

 But mighty Winter the device shall scorn." 



The Scottish poet Grahame, in his " Sabbath," saya 



manfully : 



" Now is the time 

 To visit Nature in her grand attire " ; 



and he has one little picture which no other poet has 

 surpassed : 



" High-ridged the whirled drift has almost reached 

 The powdered keystone of the churchyard porch : 

 Mute hangs the hooded bell; the tombs lie buried." 



Even in our own climate, where the sun shows his win- 

 ter face as long and as brightly as in central Italy, the 

 seduction of the chimney-corner is apt to predominate in 

 the mind over the severer satisfactions of muffled fields 

 and penitential woods. The very title of Whittier's de- 

 lightful " Snow-Bound " shows what he was thinking of, 

 though he does vapor a little about digging out paths. 

 The verses of Emerson, perfect as a Greek fragment 

 (despite the archaism of a dissyllabic fire), which he has 

 chosen for his epigraph, tell us, too, how the 



" Housemates sit 



Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 

 In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 



They are all in a tale. It is always the tristis Hiems 

 of Virgil. Catch one of them having a kind word for old 

 Barbe Fleurie, unless he whines through some cranny, 

 like a beggar, to heighten their enjoyment while they 

 toast their slippered toes. I grant there is a keen relish 

 of contrast about the bickering flame as it gives an 

 emphasis beyond Gherardo della Notte to loved faces, or 

 kindles the gloomy gold of volumes scarce less friendly, 

 especially when a tempest is blundering round the 



