The landscape is wearing a mantle of white,
Its verdure lies wither’d and hidden from sight,
Rude Borean blasts bleakly blow o’er the hills,
’Till the life-current, coursing, his icy-breath chills.

The rills in their ice-fetters firmly are bound
As the frost-spirit breathes o’er the face of the ground
The icicles pendant hang over the eaves,
And the wind whirls in eddies the rustling leaves.

It shrieks through the casement and in at the door—­
All through the long night hear it fitfully roar,
The mitre ethereal silently flies
So keen and so cutting through storm-troubled skies.

The dark leaden clouds dim the light of the sun,
And the dull dreary hours drone slothfully on,
Euroclydon forges the cold biting sleet,
And the snow-drifts he piles at the traveler’s feet.

The wealthy, at ease in their mansions so warm,
Heed not the rude blast of the pitiless storm—­
The loud-roaring tempest, the elements din,
Serve only to heighten their comforts within.

The poor, in their hovels, feel keenly the blast,
And shudder and shake as the storm-sprite goes past;
Oh! pity the poor, in their lowly estate,
And turn them not empty away from your gate.

LINES

ON WITNESSING THREE SISTERS DEPOSITING FLOWERS ON THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND,
IN ST. ANN’S CEMETERY, MIDDLETOWN, DELAWARE.

At an early hour of the Sabbath morn,
Beside the ancient, sacred pile, I stood
Of old St. Ann’s.  The ivy careless clamber’d
Along its moss-grown, antique walls;
The sun-light bathed in golden glory
The calm, sequester’d scene, and silence
Reigned through all the leafy grove,
Save where the warbling songster pour’d
His wood-notes wild, or where “the gray old trunks
That high in heaven mingled their mossy boughs,”
Murmur’d with sound of “the invisible breath
That played among their giant branches,”
And “bowed the wrapt spirit with the thought
Of boundless power and inaccessible majesty.” 
Within the lone church no loitering footfall
O’er threshold, aisle, or chancel echoed,
No sound intruded on the hush profound
Of that ancient temple.  The pale sleepers
In the weird city of the dead lay mute,
Their mouldering ashes mingling with the dust,
While sculptured tablets with memorial brief,
Their memories from oblivion rescued.

As thus upon the scene around I gazed,
The fresh-turned earth upon a new-made grave,
Within its marble confines neat enclosed,
My vision steadfast fixed, and I beheld
Three maidens, bearing each a rich bouquet,
Approach the tomb, and softly by its side
Stoop down and place thereon their floral gems
In token of the love they bore the friend
So late inurned, whom yet they fondly cherish’d. 
Full preparation one had duly made
To stand beside her at the bridal altar;