Classic Poem

The storm had passed; the air was still;
So, by the leave of Gentle Will,
I shut the sovereign book of plays
To woo the queen of winter days;
But royalties are all akin,
As world without to world within.

A carnival of sleeted snows!
The elms were keen Mercutios,
Dazzling with such a diamond wit
No Capulet could suffer it.
In muffled bush I marked her fret,
The crook-backed nurse of Juliet.

Two opalescent briars pricked
Like Beatrice and Benedict.
Beyond their tinkling repartee
Stood marble-wrought Hermione,
With ghost and mantled Prospero
And many a “mockery king of snow.”

Across the sparkling crust had gone
The fairy feet of Oberon,
And high upon a crystal wall
A tuft of grasses showed to all
How poor old Lear's white hair had tossed
A last defiance to the frost.

Enskied and sainted Isabel
Had stolen from her nunnery cell,
And where the burdened hemlock threw
Dark shadow on the drift, I knew
A sable-suited Hamlet bowed
Above Ophelia in her shroud.