Lifts her pale eye, unjoyous. Then appears
The various labor of the silent Night:
Prone from the dripping eave and dumb cascade,
Whose idle torrents only seem to roar;
The pendent icicle, the frost-work fair,
Where transient hues and fancied figures rise;
Wide-spouted o’er the hill, the frozen brook,
A livid tract, cold gleaming o’er the morn.
How strikingly beautiful is the appearance of the hoar frost, which clothes the trees in crystals, which sparkle like the most brilliant gems. Well might Howitt exclaim, as he gazed on the gorgeous effects of its incomparable loveliness,
What dream of beauty ever equalled this!