How small a tooth hath mined the season’s heart!
How cold a touch hath set the wood on fire,
Until it blazes like a costly pyre
Built for some Ganges emperor, old and swart,
Soul-sped on clouds of incense! Whose the art
That webs the streams, each morn, with silver wire,
Delicate as the tension of a lyre,—
Whose falchion pries the...
-
-
The Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,
...
And he said, “Now I shall be out of sight;
So through the valley and over the height
In silence I ’ll take my way.
I will not go like that blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I ’ll be as busy as they!” -
[Written in the Tower, the night before his probably unjust execution for treason]
MY prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my goodes is but vain hope of gain.
The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun;
And now I live, and now my life is done!...
-
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder ’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O it ’s then ’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night... -
How small a tooth hath mined the season’s heart!
How cold a touch hath set the wood on fire,
Until it blazes like a costly pyre
Built for some Ganges emperor, old and swart,
Soul-sped on clouds of incense! Whose the art
That webs the streams, each morn, with silver wire,
Delicate as the tension of a lyre,—
Whose falchion pries the... -
As Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —
Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —
If when the sun reveal,
The Garden keep the Gash —
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance
Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain —
...Did We abolish Frost
The Summer would not cease —
If Seasons perish or prevail
Is optional with Us —The Frost of Death was on the Pane —
"Secure your Flower" said he.
Like Sailors fighting with a Leak
We fought Mortality.
Our passive Flower we held to Sea —
To Mountain — To the Sun —
Yet even on his Scarlet shelf
To crawl the Frost begun —
We pried him back
...The Frost was never seen —
If met, too rapid passed,
Or in too unsubstantial Team —
The Flowers notice first
A Stranger hovering round
A Symptom of alarm
In Villages remotely set
But search effaces him
Till some retrieveless Night
Our Vigilance at waste...