| |
| STAND here by my side and turn, I pray, | |
| On the lake below thy gentle eyes; | |
| The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray, | |
| And dark and silent the water lies; | |
| And out of that frozen mist the snow | 5 |
| In wavering flakes begins to flow; | |
| Flake after flake | |
| They sink in the dark and silent lake. | |
| |
| See how in a living swarm they come | |
| From the chambers beyond that misty veil; | 10 |
| Some hover awhile in air, and some | |
| Rush prone from the sky like summer hail. | |
| All, dropping swiftly or settling slow, | |
| Meet, and are still in the depths below; | |
| Flake after flake | 15 |
| Dissolved in the dark and silent lake. | |
| |
| Here delicate snow-stars, out of the cloud, | |
| Come floating downward in airy play, | |
| Like spangles dropped from the glistening crowd | |
| That whiten by night the Milky Way; | 20 |
| There broader and burlier masses fall; | |
| The sullen water buries them all,— | |
| Flake after flake,— | |
| All drowned in the dark and silent lake. | |
| |
| And some, as on tender wings they glide | 25 |
| From their chilly birth-cloud, dim and gray, | |
| Are joined in their fall, and, side by side, | |
| Come clinging along their unsteady way; | |
| As friend with friend, or husband with wife, | |
| Makes hand in hand the passage of life; | 30 |
| Each mated flake | |
| Soon sinks in the dark and silent lake. | |
| |
| Lo! while we are gazing, in swifter haste | |
| Stream down the snows, till the air is white, | |
| As, myriads by myriads madly chased, | 35 |
| They fling themselves from their shadowy height. | |
| The fair, frail creatures of middle sky, | |
| What speed they make, with their grave so nigh; | |
| Flake after flake | |
| To lie in the dark and silent lake! | 40 |
| |
| I see in thy gentle eyes a tear; | |
| They turn to me in sorrowful thought; | |
| Thou thinkest of friends, the good and dear, | |
| Who were for a time, and now are not; | |
| Like these fair children of cloud and frost, | 45 |
| That glisten a moment and then are lost,— | |
| Flake after flake,— | |
| All lost in the dark and silent lake. | |
| |
| Yet look again, for the clouds divide; | |
| A gleam of blue on the water lies; | 50 |
| And far away, on the mountain-side, | |
| A sunbeam falls from the opening skies. | |
| But the hurrying host that flew between | |
| The cloud and the water no more is seen; | |
| Flake after flake | 55 |
| At rest in the dark and silent lake. | |
| |
