Winter Morning

Beautiful over the wood-crowned hill
          Is beaming the light of the sun;
The breath of the wingless wind so chill 
Is fanning the breast of the lagging rill,
          As it struggles in ice-chains on.

The curling smoke in its snowy wreath.
          Flings back the kindling glare, 
As, rolling up from the fires beneath, 
Its sun-lit folds are piled o'er the heath, 
          In drifts on the upper air.

There's not one cloud on the sky's blue height,
          Since the shadows of night have gone,
But is deeply dyed in the dazzling light 
That is streaming abroad, unceasing and bright,
          From the fire-car of the morn.

And where the sun from the burning bed
     Of its long and nightly rest,
O'er the hill-top rising fair and red, 
Its light on the neighboring clouds hath shed,
          They have taken a fairer vest.

They have lost their dark and sombre hue
          In the morning's lovelier light;
And shine in a vesture of purple and blue, 
And streakings of gold, which sunlight threw
          O'er their drapery of white.

The snow, like a million of sparkling gems,
          Sown carelessly everywhere,
As if from a thousand diadems
They were shaken like leaves from their brittle stems,
          Is flashing in sunlight fair.

Each swelling hill in its snow shroud seems
          A wave on a diamond sea,
As flash from its bosom the sun's bright gleams, 
On the dazzled eye its splendor streams
          All bright and beautifully.

And sparkle unseen in the silent glade,
          The silvery gems and rare,
Which the cunning hand of the frost hath made 
To deck for the tomb the dry grass-blade, 
          That Winter hath trampled there.

O! beauty is seen in the whole bright year—
          What time can claim her alone?
Not Spring, though the Spring be green and clear, 
Nor the Summer's heat, nor the Autumn's cheer,
          For she crowneth them ev'ry one.