Littell's Living Age/Volume 173/Issue 2233/Jack Frost

by Walton Hook

          Ha! ha! Jack Frost,
          Is the frontier crossed
     That divides us from Autumn's domain?
          Are we far on the road
          To your icy abode
     O'er the track of your wintry plain?
          Whose leafless trees
          All elbows and knees,
     All crooked, and crank, and cropt,
Seem struck of a heap in the act of a leap,
Surprised by your breath in a dance of death,
And all fast glued in the gaunt attitude
     They last had chanced to adopt!

          Ho! ho! Jack Frost,
          Have you rudely tossed
     To the winds our sylvan fleece?
          Bold thief of the wood
          You shall make it good
     With the folds of your snow pelisse.
          For the gold and bronze
          Of the Autumn fronds,
     Whose tints you would not spare,
You shall pay full score of snowflakes hoar,
Compound for the crime with glist'ning rime,
You shall trim the meads with crystal beads,
     And crisp the morning air.

          Our gable-heights
          Your stalactites
     In fringes shall festoon,
          You shall lay the lake —
          Or I much mistake —
     With a polished floor full soon;
          Each bough you stripped
          Shall be bravely 'quipped
     In a coat of sparkling cold —
Each hedge you scour a fairy bow'r,
Your morning breath a silver wreath,
Your starlit night a crown of light —
     You shall pay us back fourfold!