Silently we unlatch the door, letting the drift fall in, and step abroad to face the cutting air. Already the stars have lost some of their sparkle, and a dull, leaden mist skirts the horizon. A lurid brazen light in the east proclaims the approach of day, while the western landscape is dim and spectral still, and clothed in a sombre Tartarian light, like the shadowy realms. They are Infernal sounds only that you hear,—the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, the chopping of wood, the lowing of kine, all seem to come from Pluto’s barn-yard and beyond the Styx;—not for any melancholy they suggest, but their twilight bustle is too solemn and mysterious for earth. The recent tracks of the fox or otter, in the yard, remind us that each hour of the night is crowded with events, and the primeval nature is still working and making tracks in the snow. Opening the gate, we tread briskly along the lone country road, crunching the dry and crisped snow under our feet, or aroused by the sharp clear creak of the wood-sled, just starting for the distant market, from the early farmer’s door, where it has lain the summer long, dreaming amid the chips and stubble; while far through the drifts and powdered windows we see the farmer’s early candle, like a paled star, emitting a lonely beam, as if some severe virtue were at its matins there. And one by one the smokes begin to ascend from the chimneys amidst the trees and snows. The sluggish smoke curls up from some deep dell, The stiffened air exploring in the dawn, And making slow acquaintance with the day; Delaying now upon its heavenward course, In wreathed loiterings dallying with itself, With as uncertain purpose and slow deed, As its half-wakened master by the hearth, Whose mind still slumbering and sluggish thoughts Have not yet swept into the onward current Of the new day;—and now it streams afar, The while the chopper goes with step direct, And mind intent to swing the early axe. First in the dusky dawn he sends abroad His early scout, his emissary, smoke, The earliest, latest pilgrim from the roof, To feel the frosty air, inform the day; And while he crouches still beside the hearth, Nor musters courage to unbar the door, It has gone down the glen with the light wind, And o’er the plain unfurled its venturous wreath, Draped the tree-tops, loitered upon the hill, And warmed the pinions of the early bird; And now, perchance, high in the crispy air, Has caught sight of the day o’er the earth’s edge, And greets its master’s eye at his low door, As some refulgent cloud in the upper sky.