By HARRIET MABEL SPALDING.
The frost lies thick upon the pane,
The fields are white with falling snows,
O’er frost-bank, in meadow-lane,
The drifted ice of winter glows.
The buds that crowned the mountain-side,
The moss that fringed the lakelet’s shore,
Passed with the fleeting summer-tide,
And spring’s fair graces are no more.
I trace the pictures on the pane,
Then turn, where in my quiet room
The summer lives for me again,
And June’s sweet gifts in freshness bloom.
’Mid emerald moss and growing vines,
The fair lobelia’s lifted face,
Nestled among the lilies shines,
That blossom in their snowy grace.
With tender hands I lift them up,
Sweet flowers, no breath of winter dimmed!
How pure each radiant jeweled cup,
Each vase with sparkling nectar brimmed.
The aloe’s flood of molten flame,
The vervain with its crimson hue.
The rose that with the spring-time came,
And in the mountain’s fastness grew.
The white alyssum, small and fair,
The red camelia’s blushing dyes,
The jasmine’s golden blossoms rare,
The larkspur, blue as summer skies,
The sweet narcissus’s yellow blooms,
The zinnia, with its violet rays,
The pink, with all its rich perfumes,
The crowning charm of August days.
Without the snowflakes softly fall,
An airy mist from cloud and sky,
Within, their perfume over all,
The buds in rosy fragrance lie.
The pale acacia’s tinted gleams,
The white carnation’s heart of gold,
The phlox that grows beside the streams
That gem the forests dim and old.
I wonder when life’s spring is past,
And snows are falling soft as now,
When autumn glories fade at last,
And frosts lie thick upon the bough,
If some true deed that I have wrought,
May, like the flowers, its blooms unclose,
Some fair and unforgotten thought
Grow grand beneath life’s winter snows.