Classic Poem

From their innumerable breasts and wings —
All undiscerned by these, our mortal eyes,
Hid in the folds of yonder misty skies,
More like imagined sprites than real things —
Celestial doves are shedding their white plumes,
And the whole land is covered with a shower
Of motes as fair as is an unsunned flower,
Which, when it opens, yields its short-lived blooms.
Vestured all over like a bride in white
But colder than a corpse within its shroud,
The earth sleeps sparkling in the silver light
Of the soft snow, which, like a feathery cloud,
Still falls, as gently as Hope's dreams or Love's,
From the pure forms of those celestial doves,