FROST ON A WINDOW

This forest looks the way

Nightingales sound.

Tall larches lilt and sway

Above the glittering ground:

The wild white cherry spray

Scatters radiance round.

The chuckle of the nightingale

Is like this elfin wood.

Even as his gleaming trills assail

The spirit’s solitude,

These leaves of light, these branches frail

Are music’s very mood.

The song of these fantastic trees,

The plumes of frost they wear,

Are for the poet’s whim who sees

Through a deceptive air,

And has an ear for melodies

When never a sound is there.

Amelia Josephine Burr

Amelia Josephine Burr was born in New York City in 1878. She was educated at Hunter College and has made her home in Englewood, New Jersey.

A great range of interests has been the outstanding feature of her work. Too often she yields to her own facility, but there is decided vigor in many pages of The Roadside Fire (1912), In Deep Places (1914) and Life and Living (1916).