Over Snow and Ice

A round full moon is in the sky, 
     And coldly gleams the frozen lake;
Like polished steel the waters lie 
In a deep, dull sleep, the stormy cry 
     Of the north wind cannot break;
Ye might doubt if the fairies the sunbeam carries 
     To summon new verdure, could kiss them awake.

No living leaf is on the trees
     That fringe the shore of the dead lagoon,
Ye hear the creak of skeleton knees
When a blast sweeps past from boreal seas,
     Deepening the wintry swoon.
Where pallid embers of dead Decembers
     Lie gray as if dropped from the pallid moon.

Can hearts in such a world be glad?
     Aye, glad! not all in such world's despite, 
But even for this ye have counted sad,—
For the cold death-hold of the frost-fiend, mad,
     On the lake and gleaming height,
Where echoes are ringing, of laughter and singing, 
     With the whiz of the sledges in arrowy flight.

There see the sinuous flash of steel,
     The braided gleams of a hundred trails,
Chasing the glide of the skater's heel 
In a winding, blinding, dizzing [sic] reel,
     While a merry shout assails
The hille that, verily, all as merily [sic],
     Answer the shout of the frolic vales.

Ye've seen the motes, in a summer's day, 
     That a passing wing beat drives in swirls;
So intervolved and swift are they
That they seem to stream from every way,—
     A tangle of endless whirls;
Thus fleetly, in mazes of involute phases,
Wheel the shouting boys and laughing girls.

We mark no more the naked tree,
     We feel not the sting of the frosty air;
The summer-sun shines on no such glee
As the white, cold light of the moon can see
     Where the frozen lake lies bare;
The flush of the roses that June discloses,
     On the cheek of the maiden blooms lovelier there.