Thomas Bailey Aldrich

These Winter nights against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
Of ferns and blossoms and read more

These Winter nights against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
Of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines,
Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines,
Which she will make when summer comes again--
Quaint arabesques in argent, flat and cold,
Like curious Chinese etchings.

But when the sun in all his state,
Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through glory's morning read more

But when the sun in all his state,
Illumed the eastern skies,
She passed through glory's morning gate,
And walked in Paradise.

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed
The white of their leaves, the amber grain
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We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed
The white of their leaves, the amber grain
Shrunk in the wind,--and the lightning now
Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain.

When to soft Sleep we give ourselves away,
And in a dream as in a fairy bark
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When to soft Sleep we give ourselves away,
And in a dream as in a fairy bark
Drift on and on through the enchanted dark
To purple daybreak--little thought we pay
To that sweet bitter world we know by day.

When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is,
Then mark how read more

When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is,
Then mark how full Possession falls from this,
How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,--
I am perplext, and often stricken mute.
Wondering which attained the higher bliss,
The wing'd insect, or the chrysalis
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.