Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,
From the snow five thousand summers old;
On open wold and hilltop bleak,
It had gathered all the cold,
And whirled it like sleet on the wanderer's cheek;
It carried a shiver everywhere
From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare.
The little brook heard it, and built him a roof
'Neath which he could house himself, winter-proof;
All night, by the white stars' frosty gleams,
He groined his arches, and matched his beams;
Slender and clear were his crystal spars
As the lashes of light that trim the stars:
He sculptured every summer delight
In his halls and chambers, out of sight;
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt
Down through a frost-leaved forest crypt,
Long, sparking aisles of steel-stemmed trees
Bending to counterfeit a breeze;
Sometimes a roof no fretwork knew
But silvery mosses that downward grew;
Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief
With quaint arabesques of ice-fern leaf;
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear
For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here
He had caught the nodding bulrush tops
And hung them thickly with diamond drops,
That crystaled the beams of moon and sun,
And made a star of every one:
No mortal builder's most rare device
Could match this winter palace of ice.
