By: Gabriel Setoun
The door was shut, as doors should be, Before you went to bed last night; Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see, And left your window silver white. He must have waited till you slept; And not a single word he spoke, But pencilled o'er the panes and crept Away again before you woke. And now you cannot see the hills Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane; But there are fairer things than these His fingers traced on every pane. Rocks and castles towering high; Hills and dales, and streams and fields; And knights in armor riding by, With nodding plumes and shining shields. And here are little boats, and there Big ships with sails spread to the breeze; And yonder, palm trees waving fair On islands set in silver seas. And butterflies with gauzy wings; And herds of cows and flocks of sheep; And fruit and flowers and all the things You see when you are sound asleep. For creeping softly underneath The door when all the lights are out, Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe, And knows the things you think about. He paints them on the window pane In fairy lines with frozen steam; And when you wake you see again The lovely things you saw in dream.
THE FROST FAIRY
By; Ella Wheeler Wilcox
All day the trees were moaning,
For the leaves that they had lost,
All day they creaked and trembled,
And the naked branches tossed
And shivered in the north wind
As he hurried up and down,
Over hill-tops bleak and cheerless,
Over meadows bare and brown.
"Oh my green and tender leaflets.
Oh my fair buds, lost and gone!"
So they moaned through all the daytime,
So they groaned till night came on.
And the hoar-frost lurked and listened
To the wailing, sad refrain,
And he whispered, "wait--be patient--
I will cover you again;
I will deck you in new garments--
I will clothe you ere the light,
In a sheen of spotless glory--
In a robe of purest white.
You shall wear the matchless mantle,
That the good Frost Fairy weaves."
And the bare trees listened, wondered,
And forgot their fallen leaves.
And the quaint and silent fairy,
Backward, forward, through the gloom,
Wove the matchless, glittering mantle,
Spun the frost-thread on her loom.
And the bare trees talked together,
Talked in whispers soft and low,
As the good and silent fairy
Moved her shuttle to and fro.
And, lo! when the golden glory
Of the morning crept abroad,
All the trees were clothed in grandeur,
All the twiglets robed, and shod
With matchless, spotless garments,
That the sunshine decked with gems,
And the trees forgot their sorrow,
'Neath their robes and diadems.
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