Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
On Snow-flakes Melting on His Lady’s Breast
By William Martin Johnson (1771?–1797)[Born about 1771. Adopted by Ebenezer Albee, of Wrentham, Mass. Died at Jamaica, Long Island, N. Y., 1797. Preserved in an Article on “Our Neglected Poets,” by John Howard Payne.—The Democratic Review. 1838.]
T
The snow forsakes its native skies,
But proving an unwelcome guest,
It grieves, dissolves in tears, and dies.
Through all her frame a death-like chill,—
Its tears, like those I shed, to make
That icy bosom colder still.
A common fate beholders proved—
Each swain, each fair one, weeps and dies,—
With envy these, and those with love!