VI 

 TREETOPS IN WINTER 



WHILE reading Emerson recently 

 I came across a happy surprise. 

 Years before, I had, in some careless way, 

 received the impression that Emerson, 

 like many of the poets, was able to per- 

 ceive only the severe side of winter, as 

 when in "The Titmouse," for instance, 

 he says: 



"The frost king ties my fumbling feet, 

 Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, 

 Curdles the blood to the marble bones, 

 Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, 

 And hems in life with narrowing fence." 



Surely, in any thought about Emerson, 



I could not forget that well-nigh perfect 



"Greek fragment" (as James Russell 



Lowell called it), "The Snow-Storm"; 



115 



