Classic Poem

Winter-silent is the land,
Winter whiteness everywhere;
Hid as in a folded hand
Waits a wonder of the air.

Grey and slumber-sealed the skies:
Something mystic broods between,
Ambush of the still surprise,
Unseen glory in the seen.

Suddenly the heavenly ways
People with a starry host,
Moving down, a whirling maze,
To invade the earthly coast.

Hour on hour the crystal shapes
Flash into their perfect form:
From the law not one escapes,
Riot as it may the storm.

Engineries of Nature's grace,
Soundless, sure, invisible,
What the power, and where the place,
Of your endless miracle?

Apparitions born to die
Million millions in a breath,
Is your beauty signalling
Life as very soul of Death?

Snow-flake, is thy symmetry
Matter of divine concern,—
Courses of the stars on high
Hinting nothing more eterne?

If the snow-flake, what the Soul,—
No concern, its little lot?
In the vastness of the Whole,
Spirit-star, am I forgot?

Source of Beauty, make me know,
Where my skies loom grey above,
Lurks thy miracle of Snow,
Radiant of law and love!

Winter-silent lies my land?
Over-brooding lies the Care!
Fast within a folded Hand
Waits my glory of the air!