Part 3 — A WINTER SCENE.

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BY LYDIA JANE PIERSON.

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Oh how magnificent. How beautiful

The old grey wood appears. Each sturdy tree

Crown’d with a glorious diamond diadem

Of wreathen plumes and garlands. Every bush

And slender sapling, bending with the weight

Of its bright ornaments, seems to the view

Like youthful genius shrinking and o’erwhelm’d

With the chill weight of the cold world’s applause.

The sun is rising now, and every spray,

And feathery evergreen, grows radiant

With more than earthly glory. One might deem

Each twig a chain of gold profusely set

With ruby, emerald, and amethyst,

Sapphire and living diamond, splendid all

And dazzling past description. Yet there lives

No balm, no melody of loving birds

Amongst the icy branches; grandeur reigns

And frigid beauty, without life or joy.

No gentle breezes woo the branches now,

To bend and kiss their sweetly sighing lips,

And fling a cloud of incense, and bright flow’rs

Upon their lingering pinions. No young fruits

Lie in their curtain’d cradles, rocking soft

To the glad lullaby which smiling Hope

Sings round the fragrant clusters. No young birds

Lie chirping in their nests amongst green leaves.

No passing streamlet lingers in the bow’rs,

Forgetting, for a while, its morning hymn,

To touch the rich lip of the fragile flower

That lives upon its love one summer day,

Then lays the dying head so gently down

Upon its bosom, while the trembling depth

Reflects with sympathy the blighted gem,

And murmurs promise of another life,

And blest re-union at return of spring.

No young fawns gambol through the silent wood,

In the delight of life’s first consciousness

Of freedom, strength, and beauty. No fair child

Crushes the sweet buds with its little feet,

While bounding after the bright butterfly

Which floats upon its rich, brocaded wing

In graceful carelessness from bloom to bloom.

No merry laughter, no light-hearted lay,

No lover’s whisper floats among the bowers;

But all is icy beauty, cold and still,

Radiant and passionless, and void of bliss;

A glory that will quickly melt away

And leave no trace behind.

And such I deem

Is life within a nunnery; pure and bright

With heaven’s reflected glory; but all cold

And destitute of the fond sympathies

That are at once the bliss, the ornament,

And agony of life.

Liberty, Pa. March, 1841.