A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 49 



copies him but clumsily, as if the fingers of all other 

 artists were thumbs. Fernwork and lacework and fila- 

 gree in endless variety, and under it all the water tinkles 

 like a distant guitar, or drums like a tambom'ine, or 

 gurgles like the Tokay of an anchorite's dream. Be- 

 yond doubt there is a fairy procession marching along 

 those frail arcades and translucent corridors. 



" Their oaten pipes blow wondrous shrill, 

 The hemlock small blow clear." 



And hark ! is that the ringing of Titania's bridle, or the 

 bells of the wee, wee hawk that sits on Oberon's wrist ] 

 This wonder of Frost's handiwork may be had every 

 winter, but he can do better than this, though I have 

 seen it but once in my life. There had been a thaw 

 without wind or rain, making the air fat with gray vapor. 

 Towards sundown came that chill, the avant-courier of 

 a northwesterly gale. Then, though there was no per- 

 ceptible current in the atmosphere, the fog began to 

 attach itself in frosty roots and filaments to the southern 

 side of every twig and grass-stem. The very posts had 

 poems traced upon them by this dumb minstrel. 

 Wherever the moist seeds found lodgement grew an 

 inch-deep moss fine as cobweb, a slender coral-reef, 

 argentine, delicate, as of some silent sea in the moon, 

 such as Agassiz dredges when he dreams. The frost, 

 too, can wield a delicate graver, and in fancy leaves 

 Piranesi far behind. He covers your window-pane with 

 Alpine etchings, as if in memory of that sanctuary where 

 he finds shelter even in midsummer. 



Now look down from your hillside across the valley. 

 The trees are leafless, but this is the season to study 

 their anatomy, and did you ever notice before how much 

 color there is in the twigs of many of them '? And the 

 smoke from those chimneys is so blue it seems like a 

 feeder of the sky into which it flows. Winter refines it 

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