Winter Morning - An 1870 Poem

By Albion.

Bright the eastern sky is beaming

On the earth's fresh dress of snow,

Flushed with sky tins softly gleaming

That no pencil's touch can show.

 

Dressed in crystals, gay and shining,

Every branch both high and low,

All the diamond's hues combining,

Sparkles in the morning's glow.

 

Slowly like a serpent twining,

Darkly blue, the waters flow;

While colors, like the pearl shell's lining,

Tint the banks of virgin snow.

 

Like the summer's spectres frighted,

Darkly looms the evergreen

On the hillside dimly lighted

By the winter morning's sheen.

 

In the woods the jays are winging

Back and forth from tree to tree,

To the cheery martin singing

Or the merry chickadee.

 

The squirrels start up from their napping

In the hollow maple tree,

Where the woodpecker is tapping

All around his reveille.

 

'Neath the turquoise vault go streaming

Crowds of jetty crows — that fly,

Like Night's rearguard, from the gleaming

Of the rosy morning sky.

 

Up there, when the Night's reign closes,

All who Health's great prize would seek;

For though Winter claims no roses,

Still he plants them in the check.

March 2, 1870. Clearfield Republican 10(32): 1, new series.