The sun is moonlike, as a maiden feigns
To veil her beauty, yet sends glances bright
That fill the eye, and make the heart delight,
Expectant of some wonder. Lengthened trains
Of birds wing high, and straight the smoke ascends.
All things are fairy-like: the trees empearled
With frosty gem-work, like to trees in dream.
Beneath the weight the slender cedar bends
And looks more ghost-like! 'Tis a wonder-world,
Wherein, indeed, things are not as they seem.
II.—WINTER-MORN IN TOWN.
Through yellow fog all things take spectral shapes:
Lamps dimly gleam, and through the window pane
The light is shed in short and broken lane;
And "darkness visible" pants, yawns, and gapes.
From roofs the water drips, as from high capes,
Half-freezes as it falls. Like cries of pain
Fog-signals faintly heard, and then again
Grave warning words to him who rashly apes
The skater, nearer. All is muffled fast
In dense dead coils of vapour, nothing clear—
The world disguised in mumming masquerade.
O'er each a dull thick clinging veil is cast,
And no one is what fain he would appear:
Nor any well-marked track on which to tread,
Alex. H. Japp, in Belgravia.