Snow Crystals

    When all the silent air aloft
    Is blinded by the silent snow,
    And all the silent earth below
Is wrapped in royal ermine, cool and soft,
Look with that tireless eye that science lends
To pierce the world where naked vision ends,
And see the myriad symphony of form
Played on one silver chord, an infinite swarm
Of shapes aerial, crystalline, and clear,
Star-plumed, slow hovering down the atmosphere,
The six-winged angels of the unyielded throne
Of Beauty, Empress of her wintry zone,
With scepter strong as in the budding year.

Ye who have seen, – and gloried in the sight, –
How beauty revels in the infinite
    Complexity of form and hue,
And all the weird, fantastic play
Of water – the lithe Proetus, passing through
The endless changes of its summer day,
Had ye beheld no winter in the past,
Might well betray a timid doubt, at last,
    To see that free, evasive thing
    Caught by the hyperborean King,
And bound in frost-chains, over lake and river,
And in the very heavens where order reigns forever.

    True, she has waved her scepter over all,
Where the bright year its flowery dances led;
    Ocean majestic in its vapory pall,
    The rainbow and the water-fall,
The brook that frolics in its pebbled bed,
And those mysterious beings overhead,
Which we name clouds, the silent dew, the rain,
That makes low music on the grassy plain,
    And all the airy harmony of tints
    That shift and mingle in the morning mist
    Slowly dissolving, by the sun-god kissed,
Are still allegiant to the star-eyed queen
    Whose noiseless footfall prints
Her path through all their changes, with clear hints
Of a more regnant loveliness unseen.

    But can she walk the frosty air,
The cold, gray adamant that seems to rest,
A solid monument, on the dead earth’s breast?
    Has she a fairer gift
    For the chill clouds that drift
In somber gloom across the firmament?
Can she, whose life is warm light, find a rent
    In winter’s sable tent
Through which to waft us wonders of her power
Rare as her witchery on the summer shower?

Ah see! the Proteus of the misty main
    Has not forgotten the angel of mid-heaven
Who crossed the rushing rivers of the rain
    Upon that wavering bridge of light whose seven
Prismatic chords in glorious unison
    Are the seven harp-strings whose vibrations run
Through all the starry depths with light for song;

Strong is the giant Frost, but yet more strong
The seraph beauty, as from heights beyond
His frozen empery, with her magic wand
She touches the gray vapor as it swoons
To icy death in winter’s dread embrace,
And lo! transfigured, over sea and land,
Its million star-shapes of ephemeral grace,
    With pure rays whiter than the moon’s,
    Come drifting slowly down
Over the silent fields and murmuring town.
The trees bow heavy heads in reverence
    Of my fair empress, and such blossoming
Crowds their bent branches with an opulence
    Of hueless petals, it might shame the spring.
    Had they her orchards’ odorous offering
To make their gift of beauty more intense.

Deep in the heavens a flight of fairy wings
Betrays a regal presence, where
    Amid her vestal train,
    From vapors of the main
She weaves a veil, impenetrable there,
    As very darkness, filling all the air
With confluent shapes the hidden seraph flings
    Off her Jacquard loom, with fall so still
    They seem but utter silence visible!
A human breath dissolves the dainty things;
A zephyr’s breath, along the wooded hill,
Precipitates from every loaded branch
Their marble scrolls in one white avalance,
    That she rebuilds to work her noiseless will.

If ye have read the secret of her skill,
    In these fair forms of crystalline order, sprung
    From the first fiat when the world was young,
And ever unfolding to life’s crowning hour,
    Well may ye see how firmly she has clung
    To Nature’s formulæ, through all changes rung    
    On her great harp with endless star-beams strung!
    And ye shall know how deathless is the power
    That builds the pine tree and unfolds the flower;
    And in the myriad differences that draw
    Innumerous fairy forms by one clear law,
    Shall ye discern the vital throbs that mould
    The wild-bee’s cell, and ray the living gold
    Of starry petals in symmetric blooms,
    Till by slow increase, through the antique glooms
    Of elder ages, the unfolding plan
    Climbs through all forms and culminates in man,
    Whose subtle thought and reverent soul serene
    Give conscious worship to the immortal Queen.

    Fair daughter of the joy of God,
Beauty, my Empress! let me not forget
    Thy glory in the darkness, when the clod
Falls icily on thy bosom. Nay, for yet
Thou shalt arise in undiminished power –
The strength of loveliness! And even now
    When winter’s gorgon brow
Freezes to rock the nymphs of brook and flower,
Deadens the earth and glooms the very skies,
    Deep in his veiled and laughing eyes
I see, betrayed through all his harsh disguise,
Thy masking votary, who with mimic spite
Brings loyal service while he seems to smite.