STUDYING A STRANGE FIND. 



DECEMBER IN THE WOODS. 



DWIGHT E. SMITH. 



Bleak is the forest, still and chill. 



Cold, gleaming, desolate lies the snow 



Upon the hills. Night now draws near. 



Far in the West, below the fleecy clouds, 



The burning sun goes down. The Western 

 sky, 



A moment flushed with red, grows white 

 as steel, 



Cold, bitter cold, and dead, and deathly 

 still. 



The forest dark and grim, with towering 

 trees, 



Stands out against the moonlit, glittering 

 snow. 



The treetops, black and bare and motion- 

 less, 



Are traced upon the sky like lacework fine. 



The trunks below, in vistas long and gray^ 

 Stretch out toward other vistas : all is 



still. 

 Stern silence passes through beneath the 



trees 

 And leaves no trace behind. All things 



are dead. 

 Here nothing lives. The distant, gleam- 

 ing stars, 

 So coldly glittering in a sky of steel, 

 Gaze down upon the forest and the snow. 

 The moon floats by; her chill and cheer- 

 less light, 

 Vague and uncertain, hovers over all, 

 And all is dead and desolate and drear, 

 And desolate and dead and drear — and 

 drear ! 



"They caught a man robbing the public 

 library till in a New England town." 



"How did they punish him?" 



"Made him read all the historical 

 novels." — Cleveland Plain Dealer. 



43o 



