February. SNOW-FLAKES. OUT of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression, Even as the troubled heart doth make In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, Slowly in silent syllables recorded; Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, The winter did not pass without its peculiar delights and recreations. The singing of the great wood-fires; the blowing of the wind over the chimney tops, as if they were organ pipes; the splendor of the spotless snow; the purple wall built round the horizon at sunset; the sea-suggesting pines, with the moan of the billows in their branches, on which the snows were furled like sails; the northern lights; the stars of steel; the transcendent moonlight, and the lovely shadows of the leafless trees upon the snow;- these things did not pass unnoticed nor unremembered. KAVANAGH. By the fireside there are peace and comfort, Wives and children, with fair, thoughtful faces, Waiting, watching For a well-known footstep in the passage. THE GOLDEN MILE-STONE. FEBRUARY 2. "Peace! peace! Why dost thou question God's providence?" Angels of Life and Death alike are his ; HYPERION. Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er; Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this, Against his messengers to shut the door? THE TWO ANGELS. How the chorus swells and dies, like the wind of summer! How those passages of mysterious import seem to wave to and fro, like the swaying branches of trees; from which anon some solitary sweet voice darts off like a bird, and floats away and revels in the bright, warm sunshine! HYPERION. How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow Into the arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives ! MORITURI SALUTAMUS. FEBRUARY 4. The passing years had drunk a portion of the light from her eyes, and left their traces on her cheeks, as birds that drink at lakes leave their footprints on the margin. But the pleasant smile remained, and reminded him of the bygone days. Can it be so! Or does my sight KAVANAGH. Though Time has touched it in his flight, THE GOLDEN Legend. |