Come children dear, and look around;
Behold how soft and light
The silent snow has clad the ground
In robes of purest white.

The trees seem deck'd by fairy hand,
Nor need their native green;
And every breeze appears to stand,
All hush'd, to view the scene.

You wonder how the snows were made
That dance upon the air,
As if from purer worlds they stray'd,
So lightly and so fair.

Perhaps they are the summer flowers
In northern stars that bloom,
Wafted away from icy bowers
To cheer our winter's gloom.

Perhaps they're feathers of a race
Of birds that live away,
In some cold dreary wintry place,
Far from the sun's warm ray.

And clouds, perhaps, are downy beds
On which the winds repose;
Who, when they rouse their slumb'ring heads,
Shake down the feath'ry snows.

But see, my darlings, while we stay
And gaze with fond delight,
The fairy scene soon fades away,
And mocks our raptur'd sight.

And let this fleeting vision teach
A truth you soon must know—
That all the joys we here can reach
Are transient as the snow.

The wilderness a secret keeps
Upon whose guess I go:
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard;
And yet I know, I know,

Some day the viewless latch will lift,
The door of air swing wide
To one lost chamber of the wood
Where those shy mysteries hide,—

One yet unfound, receding depth,
From which the wood-thrush sings,
Still luring in to darker shades,
In—in to colder springs.

There is no wind abroad to-day.
But hark!— the pine-tops' roar,
That sleep and in their dreams repeat
The music of the shore.

What wisdom in their needles stirs?
What song is that they sing?
Those airs that search the forest's heart,
What rumor do they bring?

A hushed excitement fills the gloom,
And, in the stillness, clear
The vireo's tell-tale warning rings:
"'Tis near—'tis near—'tis near!"

As, in the fairy-tale, more loud
The ghostly music plays
When, toward the enchanted bower, the prince
Draws closer through the maze.

Nay—nay. I track a fleeter game,
A wilder than ye know,
To lairs beyond the inmost haunt
Of thrush or vireo.

This way it passed: the scent lies fresh;
The ferns still lightly shake.
Ever I follow hard upon,
But never overtake.

To other woods the trail leads on,
To other worlds and new,
Where they who keep the secret here
Will keep the promise too.