CHAPTER TWO

Under a mantle of frost-work and snow,

Close by the arc of the fairy-queen’s ring,

Sleeping in delicate grottoes of ice,

Clusters of violets dream of the spring.

—D. CHAUNCEY BREWER.

That strain again! It had a dying fall:

Oh! it came o’er my ear like the sweet south,

That breathes upon a bank of violets