at and coming change. We are eager for Winter
to be gone, since he too is fugitive, and cannot keep his place.
Invisible hands deface his icy statuary; his chisel has lost its
cunning. The drifts, so pure and exquisite, are now earth-stained and
weather-worn,--the flutes and scallops, and fine, firm lines, all gone;
and what was a grace and an ornament to the hills is now a
disfiguration. Like worn and unwashed linen appear the remains of that
spotless robe with which he clothed the world as his bride.

But he will not abdicate without a struggle. Day after day he rallies
his scattered forces, and night after night pitches his white tents on
the hills, and forges his spears at the eaves and by the dripping rocks;
but the young Prince in every encounter prevails. Slowly and reluctantly
the gray old hero retreats up the mountain, till finally the south rain
comes in earnest, and in a night he is dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] A spur of the Catskills.

TO HERSA.

Maiden, there is something more
Than raiment to adore;
Thou must have more than a dress,
More than any mode or mould,
More than mortal loveliness,
To captivate the cold.

Bow the knightly when they bow,
To a star behind the brow,--
Not to marble, not to dust,
But to that which warms them;
Not to contour nor to bust,
But to that which forms them,--
Not to languid lid nor lash,
Satin fold nor purple sash,
But unto the living flash
So mysteriously hid
Under lash and under lid.

But, vanity of vanities,--
If the red-rose in a young cheek lies,
Fatal disguise!
For the most terrible lances
Of the true, true knight
Are his bold eyebeams;
And every time that he opens his eyes,
The falsehood that he looks on dies.

If the heavenly light be latent,
It can need no earthly patent.
Unbeholden unto art--
Fashion or lore,
Scrip or store,
Earth or ore--
Be thy heart,
Which was music from the start,
Music, music to the core!

Music, which, though voiceless,
Can create
Both form and fate,
As Petrarch could a sonnet
That, taking flesh upon it,
Spirit-noiseless,
Doth the same inform and fill
With a music sweeter still!
Lives and breathes and palpitates,
Moves and moulds and animates,
And sleeps not from its duty
Till the maid in whom 'tis pen