Frost

The pane is etched with wondrous tracery;
Curve interlaced with curve and line with line,
Like subtle measures of sweet harmony
Transformed to shapes of beauty crystalline.

Slim, graceful vines and tendrils, of such sort
As never grew save in some fairy world,
Wind up from roots of misted silver wrought
Through tulip flowers and lilies half unfurled.

Shag firs and hemlocks blend with plumy palms,
Spiked cacti spring from feathery ferns and weeds,
And sea-blooms, such as rock in Southern calms,
Mingle their foamy fronds with sedge and reeds.

And there are flights of birds with iris wings
That shed in mid-air many a brilliant plume,
And scintillating shoals of swimming things
That seem to float in clear green ocean gloom.

And there are diamond-crusted diadems,
And orbs of pearl and sceptres of pale gold,
Stored up in crystal grottoes, lit with gems
And paved with emeralds of price untold.

And marvellous architecture of no name,
Facades and shafts of loveliest form and hue,
Keen pinnacles and turrets tipped with flame,
And fretted domes of purest sapphire blue.

All these the genii of the Frost last night
Wrought through the still cold hours by charm and rune;
And now, like dreams dispelled before the light,
They float away in vapor on the noon.
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