A January Frost 



appointed, and to find either more snow or 

 another hard frost in the morning. The top 

 snow, of course, has melted a little with the 

 heat of the midday sun, but that is no thaw. 

 And then, one night after stables, the signs 

 of a change are treated with indifferent 

 scepticism. 



But in the morning, 



" There's a sound as of roof tiles dripping, 

 There's a splash on the window pane, 

 There's a general sense of a moisture sweet, 

 With a musical splashing of horses' feet 

 So hurrah ! for the Chase again. 

 On the road before the window there's a glorious 



pool of mud, 

 And the meadows, stretched in the vale below, 

 That so long were hid 'neath the hideous snow 

 Are bathed in a rippling flood. 



On the hill above, the ploughed land, 



Where every clod was rock, 



And rang like the hard, unyielding steel 



To the flying foot and the spurning heel 



Is mud to the knee and hock. 



There's a musical trill to every rill 



Where the rippling waters flow ; 



And the brook in its boisterous, boiling glee, 



Tears wildly along, from the ice grip free 



In the vale where the alders grow." 



"5 



