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-the marshes drink their fill And swoon with purple veins, then, slowly fade 145 Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the shade, Lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's darkening hill. Later, and yet ere winter wholly shuts, Ere through the first dry snow the runner grates, And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery ruts, 150 While firmer ice the eager boy awaits, Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, And until bedtime plays with his desire, Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought skates;-- Then, every morn, the river's banks shine bright 155 With smooth plate-armor, treacherous and frail, By the frost's clinking hammers forged at night, 'Gainst which the lances of the sun prevail, Giving a pretty emblem of the day When guiltier arms in light shall melt away, 160 And states shall move free-limbed, loosed from war's cramping mail. And now those waterfalls the ebbing river Twice every day creates on either side Tinkle, as through their fresh-sparred grots they shiver In grass-arched channels to the sun denied; 165 High flaps in sparkling blue the far-heard crow, The silvered flats gleam frostily below, Suddenly drops the gull and breaks the glassy tide. But crowned in turn by vying seasons three, Their winter halo hath a fuller ring; 170 This glory seems to rest immovably,-- The others were too fleet and vanishing; When the hid tide is at its highest flow, O'er marsh and stream one breathless trance of snow With brooding fulness awes and hushes everything. 175 The sunshine seems blown off by the bleak wind, As pale as formal candles lit by day; Gropes to the sea the river dumb and blind; The brown ricks, snow-thatched by the storm in play, Show pearly breakers combing o'er their lee, 180 White crests as of some just enchanted sea, Checked in their maddest leap and hanging poised midway. But when the eastern blow, with rain aslant. From mid-sea's prairies green and rolling plains Drives in his wallowing herds of billows gaunt, 185 And the roused Charles remembers in his veins Old Ocean's blood an
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