A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 45 



Ere yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow, 



Or winds begun through hazy skies to blow, 



At evening a keen eastern breeze arose, 



And the descending rain unsullied froze. 



Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew, 



The ruddy noon disclosed at once to view 



The face of Nature in a rich disguise, 



And brightened every object to my eyes; 



For every shrub, and every blade of grass, 



And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass; 



In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show, 



And through the ice the crimson berries glow; 



The thick-sprung reeds, which watery marshes yield, 



Seem polished lances in a hostile field; 



The stag in limpid currents with surprise 



Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise; 



The spreading oak, the beech, the towering pine, 



Glazed over in the freezing ether shine; 



The frighted birds the rattling branches shun, 



W^hich wave and glitter in the distant sun, 



When, if a sudden gust of wind arise, 



The brittle forest into atoms flies, 



The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends 



And in a spangled shower the prospect ends." 



It is not uninstrnctive to see how tolerable Ambrose is, 

 80 long as he sticks manfully to what he really sawi 

 The moment he undertakes to improve on Nature h^ 

 sinks into the mere court poet, and we surrender him to 

 the jealousy of Pope without a sigh. His " rattling 

 branches " and " crackling forest " are good, as truth al- 

 ways is after a fashion ; but what shall we say of that 

 dreadful stag which, there is little doubt, he valued 

 above all the rest, because it was purely his own 1 



The damper snow tempts the amateur architect and 

 sculptor. His Pentelicus has been brought to his very 

 door, and if there are boys to be had (whose comjDany 

 beats all other recipes for prolonging life) a middle-aged 

 Master of the Works will knock the years off his ac- 

 count and make the family Bible seem a dealer in foolish 

 fables, by a few hours given heartily to this business. 

 First comes the Sisyphean toil of rolling the clammy 



