As if with fur of ermine crown’d:
And lo! how by degrees,
The universal mantle hides the trees,
In hoary flakes which downward fly,
As if it were the autumn of the sky,
Whose fall of leaf would theirs supply:
Trembling the groves sustain the weight, and bow,
Like aged limbs which feebly go,
Beneath a venerable head of snow.
No author of real genius is more censurable on this score than Dryden.