WINTER DAYS 



BUT dreary days and darkest nights have their HOAR 



dawn, Nature's jewelled dawn, when the rising sun 

 makes countless crystals flash their diamond eyes, and 

 clear, crisp frost holds the earth bound in silent grip. 

 With what marvellous skill it takes the shapeless fog 

 and fines it down to frosted fringe, and misses not in 

 all the hoary world a single bent or blade, no topmost 

 twig nor knotted root. In yonder copse sapling oaks 

 still bear some nut-brown leaves, but their heavy 

 burden of crystals is too great, and in the calm still 

 air they loose their grasp and drop in rustling flight 

 to earth. Alas ! the sun in revealing the full beauty 

 of this frosted fairy-land melts its spun silver 

 splendour and 'tis gone ! 



There are two Books from whence I collect my Divinity; 

 besides that written one of God, another of His servant Nature, 

 that universal and publick Manuscript, that lies expans'd unto 

 the Eyes of all : those that never saw Him in the one, have 

 discovered Him in the other. 



SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 



189 



FROST 



