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 frozen mist that one warm breath
    May quickly drive away.

And yet, how beautiful they are,
    These flowers of our breath;
That bloom when not a leaf is left
    To mourn the summer's death.
And oh! how wondrous are the things
    That God has given the earth;
The day that brings to one a death
    Smiles on another's birth.