Cheery Chickadee

The Speckled sky is dim with snow,

The light flakes falter and fall slow;

Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,

Silently drops a silvery veil;

And all the valley is shut in

By flickering curtains gray and thin.

But cheerily the chickadee

Singeth to me on fence and tree;

The snow sails round him as he sings,

White as the down of angels’ wings.

I watch the slow flakes as they fall

On bank and brier and broken wall;

Over the orchard, waste and brown,

All noiselessly they settle down,

Tipping the apple-boughs, and each

Light quivering twig of plum and peach.

On turf and curb and bower-roof

The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;

It paves with pearl the garden-walk;

And lovingly round tattered stalk

And shivering stem its magic weaves

A mantle fair as lily-leaves.

The hooded beehive, small and low,

Stands like a maiden in the snow;

And the old door-slab is half hid

Under an alabaster lid.

All day it snows: the sheeted post

Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;

All day the blasted oak has stood

A muffled wizard of the wood;

Garland and airy cap adorn

The sumach and the wayside thorn,

And clustering spangles lodge and shine

In the dark tresses of the pine.

The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,

Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;

In surplice white the cedar stands,

And blesses him with priestly hands.

Still cheerily the chickadee

Singeth to me on fence and tree:

But in my inmost ear is heard

The music of a holier bird;

And heavenly thoughts as soft and white

As snow-flakes, on my soul alight,

Clothing with love my lonely heart,

Healing with peace each bruised part,

Till all my being seems to be

Transfigured by their purity.

Midwinter by John Townsend Trowbridge