Frost-Flowers.

    Over my window in pencillings white,
Stealthily traced in the silence of night -
Traced with a pencil as viewless as air,
By an artist unseen, when the star-beams were fair,
Came wonderful pictures, so life-like and true
That I'm filled with amaze as the marvel I view.

    Like, and yet unlike the things I have seen, -
Feathery ferns in the forest-depths green,
Delicate mosses that hide from the light,
Snow-drops, and lilies, and hyacinths white,
Fringes, and feathers, and half-opened flowers,
Closely-twined branches of dim, cedar bowers -
Strange, that one hand should so deftly combine
Such numberless charms in so quaint a design!

    O wondrous creations of silence and night!
I watch as ye fade in the clear morning light, -
As ye melt into tear-drops and trickle away
From the keen, searching eyes of inquisitive Day.
While I gaze ye are gone, and I see you depart
With a wistful regret lying deep in my heart, -
A longing for something that will not decay,
Or melt like these frost-flowers in tear-drops away, -
A passionate yearning of heart for that shore
Where beauty unfading shall last evermore;
Nor, e'en as we gaze, from our vision be lost
Like the beautiful things that are pencilled in frost!

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

Pamela S. Vining, also known by her pseudonym J. C. Yule, was an English poet whose work was recognized in the 19th century. Despite her significant contribution to English poetry, detailed information about her life, including her birth and death dates, remains elusive. She remains a noteworthy figure in the canon of English literature for her emotive and thought-provoking poetry.

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

To A Day Lily

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

Brother, Rest.

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

A Holiday Song.

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

Good Night

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule), Simple Poetry

English

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The Beautiful Artist.

There's a beautiful Artist abroad in the world,
        And her pencil is dipped in heaven, -
The gorgeous hues of Italian skies,
The radiant sunset's richest dyes,
The light of Aurora's laughing eyes,
        Are each to her pictures given.

As I walked abroad yestere'en, what time
        The sunset was fairest to see,
I saw where her wonderful brush had been
Over a maple tree - half of it green -
And the fairiest col'ring that ever was seen
        She had left on that maple tree.

There was red of every possible hue,
        There was yellow of every dye,
From the faintest straw-tint to orange bright,
Fluttering, waving, flashing in light,
With the delicate, green leaves still in sight,
        Peeping out at the sunset sky.

She h...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

Flowers In Winter

Painted Upon a Porte Livre.


How strange to greet, this frosty morn,
In graceful counterfeit of flowers,
These children of the meadows, born
Of sunshine and of showers!

How well the conscious wood retains
The pictures of its flower-sown home,
The lights and shades, the purple stains,
And golden hues of bloom!

It was a happy thought to bring
To the dark seasons frost and rime
This painted memory of spring,
This dream of summer-time.

Our hearts are lighter for its sake,
Our fancys age renews its youth,
And dim-remembered fictions take
The guise of, present truth.

A wizard of the Merrimac,
So old ancestral legends say,
Could call green leaf and blossom back
To frosted stem and spray.

The d...

John Greenleaf Whittier

Up The Nepigon.

How beautiful, how beautiful,
    Beneath the morning sky,
In bridal veil of snowy mist,
    These dreamy headlands lie!
How beautiful, in soft repose,
    Upon the water's breast,
Steeped in the sunlight's golden calm,
    These fairy islets rest!

A Sabbath hush enfolds the hills,
    And broods upon the deep
Whose music every hollow fills,
    And climbs each rocky steep,
Now low and soft like love's own sigh,
    Now faint and far away,
Now plaining to the answering pines,
    With melancholy lay.

Like white-winged birds, through azure depths,
    Above the restless tide,
With snowy plume and golden crest,
    The fleecy cloudlets glide;
Their dancing shadows fleck the deep,
    Or flit above the green
Of emerald is...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)

Winter Flowers.

The summer queen has many flowers
    To deck her sunny hair,
And trailing grasses, pure and sweet,
    To scent the heavy air;
And upward through the misty sky
    There is a glory too,
Of floating clouds and rifts of gold
    And depths of smiling blue.


Yet winter, too, can boast a wealth
    Of flowers pure and white;
A kingly crown of frosted gems--
    A wreath of sparkling light;
So bright and beautiful, indeed,
    It were a wondrous sight
To see a world of fragile flowers
    Sprung up within a night.

And sometimes there are cast'es, too,
    Of glittering ice and snow,
Piled high upon our window-panes
    'Neath curtains hanging low;
And they are like the castles fair
    Our day-dreams build for aye;
A ...

Fannie Isabelle Sherrick

Frost at Midnight

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud, and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,<...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Under The Snow

    Over the mountains, under the snow
Lieth a valley cold and low,
'Neath a white, immovable pall,
Desolate, dreary, soulless all,
And soundless, save when the wintry blast
Sweeps with funeral music past.

    Yet was that valley not always so,
For I trod its summer-paths long ago;
And I gathered flowers of fairest dyes
Where now the snow-drift heaviest lies;
And I drank from rills that, with murmurous song,
Wandered in golden light along
Through bowers, whose ever-fragrant air
Was heavy with perfume of flowrets fair, -
Through cool, green meadows where, all day long,
The wild bee droned his voluptuous song;
While over all shone the eye of Love
In the violet-tinted heavens above.

    And through that valley ran veins of gold,
And the...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)