The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir :: :: University of Virginia Library

The snow! the snow! 'tis a pleasant thing
To watch it falling, falling
Down upon earth with noiseless wing,
As at some spirit's calling:
Each flake seems a fairy parachute,
From mystic cloudland blown,
And earth is still, and air is mute,
As frost's enchanted zone.

II

The shrubs bend down; behold the trees
Their fingery boughs stretch out
The blossoms of the sky to seize,
As they duck and drive about;
The bare hills plead for a covering,
And, ere the grey twilight,
Around their shoulders broad shall cling
An arctic cloak of white.

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III

With clapping hands, from drifted door
Of lonely shieling, peeps
The imp, to see thy mantle hoar
O'erspread the craggy steeps.
The eagle round its eyrie screams,
The hill-fox seeks the glade,
And foaming downwards rush the streams,
As mad to be delay'd.

IV

Falling white on the land it lies,
And falling dark in the sea;
The solan to its island flies,
The crow to the thick larch-tree;
Within the penthouse struts the cock,
His draggled mates among;
While black-eyed robin seems to mock
The sadness with his song.

V

Released from school, 'twas ours to wage,
How keenly! bloodless wars—
Tossing the balls in mimic rage,
That left their gorgeous scars;
While doublets dark were powder'd oer,
Till darkness none could find;
And valorous chiefs had wounds before,
And caitiff churls behind.

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VI

Comrades, to work!—I see him yet,
That piled-up giant grim,
To startle horse and horsemen set,
With Titan girth of limb.
Snell Sir John Frost, with crystal spear,
We hoped thou wouldst have screen'd him;
But Thaw, the traitor, lurking near,
Soon cruelly guillotined him.

VII

The powdery snow! Alas! to me
It speaks of far-off days,
When a boyish skater mingling free
Amid the merry maze.
Methinks I see the broad ice still;
And my nerves all jangling feel,
Blent with the tones of voices shrill,
The ring of the slider's heel.

VIII

A scene of revelry! Soon night
Drew his murky curtains round
The world, while a star of lustre bright
Peep'd from the blue profound.
Yet what cared we for darkening lea,
Or warning bell remote?
With rush and cry we scudded by,
And seized the bliss we sought.

387

IX

Drift on, ye wild winds! leave no traces
Of dim and danky earth;
While eager faces fill their places
Around the blazing hearth:
Then let the stories of the glories
Of our rough sires be told;
Or tale of knight, who lady bright
From thraldom saved of old.

X

Or let the song the charms prolong,
In music's haunting tone,
Of shores where spring's aye blossoming,
And winter is unknown;
Where zephyrs, sick with scent of flowers,
Along the lakelets play;
And lovers, wand'ring thro' the bowers,
Make life a holiday.

XI

Sunset and snow! Lo, eve reveals
Her starr'd map to the moon,
And o'er hush'd earth a radiance steals
More bland than that of noon:
The fur-robed genii of the Pole
Dance o'er our mountains white,
Chain up the billows as they roll,
And pearl the caves with light.

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XII

The moon above the eastern fells
Holds on a silent way;
The mill-wheel, sparr'd with icicles,
Reflects her silver ray;
The ivy-tod, beneath its load,
Bends down with frosty curl;
And all around seems sown the ground
With diamond and with pearl.

XIII

The groves are black, the hills are white,
And, glittering in the sheen,
The lake expands—a sheet of light—
Its willowy banks between;
From the dark sedge that skirts its edge
The startled wild-duck springs,
While, echoing far up copse and scaur,
The fowler's musket rings.

XIV

From cove to cove how sweet to rove
Around that fairy scene,
Companion'd, as along we move,
By things and thoughts serene;—
Voiceless, except where, cranking, rings,
The skater's curve along,
The demon of the ice, who sings
His deep, hoarse under-song.

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XV

In days of old, when spirits held
The air, and the earth below,
When o'er the green were, tripping, seen
The fays—what wert thou, Snow?
Leave eastern Greece its fabled fleece,
For Northland has its own—
The witches of Norway pluck their geese,
And thou art their plumes of down.

XVI

The snow! the snow! It brings to mind
A thousand happy things,
And but one sad one—'tis to find
Too sure that Time hath wings!
O, ever sweet is sight or sound
That tells of long ago;
And I gaze around, with thoughts profound,
Upon the falling snow!