LINES ΤΟ AN ORANGE-TREE. Thou shall find a friend in me, Outcast tree! Who will bear thee from the storm To a shelter snug and warm- When the snow is on the roof, Or the sleet comes down amain Few delights, in sooth, to boast, Has our little, plain retreat, Yet while sadness rules the year Thou shalt sit beside my hearth, And its music and its mirth From thy memory shall beguile 289 290 W. P. P. And the nook assigned to thee, It shall be Just the soothest, sunniest spot Where, throughout the Winter day, 'Mid the leafy shades so sweet, At thy feet. So then, prithee, come with me, And beneath my lowly roof, Let thy greeting be a proof That the peasant's humble door With as wide a welcome swings As a king's! Winter Piece. James Russell Lowell. DOWN swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand Summers old; On open wold and hill-top bleak It had gathered all the cold. And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek; It carried a shiver every where From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; The little brook heard it, and built a roof He groined his arches and matched his beams; As the lashes of light that trim the stars; He sculptured every Summer delight Down through a frost-leaved forest crypt, 292 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here And hung them thickly with diamond drops, No mortal builder's most rare device Lest the happy model should be lost, By the elfin builders of the frost. The Snow-Storm. Ralph Waldo Emerson. ANNOUNCED by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the Snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. Come see the north wind's masonry. Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof |