Poems (Chitwood)/Frost Pictures on the Pane
FROST PICTURES ON THE PANE.
Like a fair nun sadly pining,Is the quiet young moon shining;Something in the light, is lonely;Or, perchance, my own heart only,Shuts itself in shadows dreary—Sad and wounded, weak and weary;For, to-night, dark sorrow tracesLines upon my hearts deep places;And to honor fancy's pleading,And to stop my heart from bleeding,Let me go to her domain,Tracing pictures on the pane.
What is this? A church, with larches,Ivy, dark, about its arches?Steep roofed, with dark masses dotted,Eaves, by time's stern fingers spotted?Night birds in the belfry sleeping,Wind-moans, sounding half like weeping,And, within, pale spirits flittingDown the aisles; in brown pews sitting,To the ghostly parson listening,In his robe so stiff and glistening;—This doth fancy trace, all plain,On the frosty window pane.
Now I see a forest dismal,"Beetling rock, and gorge abysmal," Caverns dark,—the bandit's palace,—Fierce men drinking from each chalice,Knives and swords, with blood-stains glisten,As to each low sound they listen;With the light on fair brow beaming,Sleeps the chieftain's young bride, dreamingOf the home she loved in childhood,Of her dark life in the wild wood;—Ah! I would not see againThat sad picture on the pane!
Fancy, fancy, something brighter,Something fairer, something lighter;So then trace, in sunny humor,Some sweet picture of the summer;Of the winter I am weary—Leafless trees, and brown earth dreary.Pencil something to enchant me,Something bright, that will not haunt me;Something like a harp's low trilling,That may set the heart to thrilling,Paint me, ere I look again,On the frosty window pane.
All my inner soul grows tender;Oh, what glory, and what splendor;—Do I see the golden portal?Do I view the sweet immortal?Glimpses of the fair evangels,Shining seraphs, blessed angels, Light wings, like the pure snow gleaming,Gem-like haloes o'er them beaming.Fancy, take away the glory;Dark, dark earth is yet before me;To that earth I look again,
From the frost-work on the pane.Comes there light through every sorrow,Shining faintly on the morrow;When I cross the narrow river,When earth's last tie snaps forever,Then, Oh then, the glorious real,Will outshine the rare ideal;Never, never yet the mortalGazed beyond the pearly portal.If the shadow, faintly beaming,Is so beautiful in dreaming,Who shall paint the bright domain,From the tracery on the pane.