JANUARY DAYS 



barn, but he will not suffer you to come 

 so near to him as will this solemn an- 

 chorite who stares at you unmoved as a 

 graven image till you come within the 

 very shadows of his roof. 



Marsh and channel are scarcely distin- 

 guishable now but by the white domes 

 of the muskrats' winter homes and here 

 and there a sprawling thicket or button 

 bush, for the rank growth of weeds is 

 beaten flat, and the deep snow covers it 

 and the channel ice in one unbroken 

 sheet. 



Champlain's sheltered bays and coves 

 are frozen and white with snow or frost, 

 and the open water, whether still or 

 storm-tossed, black beneath clouds or 

 bluer than the blue dome that arches it, 

 looks as cold as ice and snow. Some- 

 times its steaming breath lies close 

 above it, sometimes mounts in sway- 

 ing, lofty columns to the sky, but always 

 cold and ghostly, without expression of 

 warmth or life. 



So far away to hoary peaks that shine 

 with a glittering gleam against the blue 

 rim of the sky, or to the furthest blue- 

 gray line of woodland that borders the 

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