Cofachiqui, and Other Poems/Snow robes

SNOW ROBES.

MURKY clouds were thickly vailing
Wintry skies, and slowly failing
Was the gray light, like a weary
Life, though brief yet cold and dreary.
Brown and bare the hills were looming,
Dark woods at their feet were glooming.
Gloom grew deeper, shadows blended
Earth and sky, though day not ended,
And the air was like a boundless
Ocean, sullen, sunless, soundless.

From the upper deep descending,
Feathery flakes came slowly wending,
And their coming ne'er was ceasing,
Still their numbers were increasing,
Till the dark air caught faint brightness
From those crystals' wondrous whiteness.
Delicate and wondrous airy,
Pure as heaven and light as fairy,
Whiter than the lilies blooming,
E'en though born from storm-clouds glooming;
Millions fall the earth to cover,
Thousands o'er the dark stream hover—
Vauish then. Did mortals ever
On Time's dark and rushing river
End a life so brief and stainless
By a death so pure and painless?

Silence hung deep and unbroken
'Mid the forest arches oaken;
Branches hung without vibration,
Not the slightest undulation;
All devoid of animation;
Nature's breast had no pulsation;
Through the storm-night long and dreary
Silent lay, entranced and weary.
Seemed the sky above travailing
And the light from star-eyes failing.

Slowly came at last the dawning,
Night and clouds like sable awning
Slowly drew their heavy shadows
From the forests and the meadows.
Sat the day-king crowned with burning
On the golden throne of morning,
Flung his gems of ruby glory
Through the morning air frost-hoary.
Oh! 't was wondrous—such celestial
Beauty in this dull, terrestrial
World to see, as had been given
Us a picture here of heaven.
And to reproduce that vision,
As it seemed, that scene elysian,
Every color of the painter
Would be duller, colder, fainter,
Than the light on wintry ocean
'Mid the tempest's black commotion.
For the seer's imagination
Or the poet's inspiration
Ne'er conceived or told the story
Of such purity and glory;
For each shrub and trailing bramble,
Vines that 'mong the broad limbs ramble,
All the twigs and branches bending,
Every brown leaf thence depending,
And the brown hills rising steeply,
All were wrapped entirely, deeply,
In a mantle purer, fairer
Than e'er wore the human wearer.
Seemed the forests' mural edges
And the hills' steep, rocky ledges
Like the gleaming, awful whiteness
Of the "great white throne" of brightness.
Those white robes so dazzling splendid,
Wrapped o'er all the branches bended,
Were, through all their meshes, spangled
With the sunlight they entangled.

But alas! of short duration
Was the trees' transfiguration.
Came the south wind 'round them wooing,
With its wanton hands undoing
All the icy clasps 't were binding
Those white mantles 'round them winding,
And they, doffing their bright dress,
Stood as erst in nakedness.