It is snowing. Faster, faster, faster come down the feathery flakes. See how they disport themselves—giddy young creatures as they are—whirling around; now up, and now down; dancing, leaping, flying; you can almost hear their sportive laughter as they skim away across the landscape. Almost, we say, for in truth there is not a sound to be heard in earth, air, or sky. The ground, all robed in white, is hushed in silence—the river sweeps its current along no longer with a hoarse chafing sound, but flows onward with a dull, clogged, almost noiseless motion—not a bird whistles in the wood, nor a beast lows from the barn-yard—while the trees, lifting their bleached branches to the skies, shiver in the keen air, and cower uncomplainingly beneath the falling flakes. But hark! there is a voice beside us—’tis that of the beloved of our soul—repeating Thomson’s Winter—Thomson! majestic at all times, but oh! how much more so when gushing in silver music from the lips of the white-armed one beside us. Hear her! “The keener tempests rise: and fuming dun From all the livid east, or piercing north, Thick clouds ascend; in whose capacious womb A vapory deluge lies, to snow congeal’d. Heavy they roll their fleecy world along; And the sky saddens with the gather’d storm. _Through the hush’d air the whitening shower descends,_ _At first thin wavering; till at last the flakes_ _Fall broad, and wide, and fast, dimming the day,_ _With a continual flow._ The cherished fields Put on their winter-robe of purest white. ’Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts Along the mazy current. Low the woods Bow their hoar head; and ere the languid sun Faint from the west emits his evening ray Earth’s universal face, deep hid, and chill, Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide The works of man. Drooping, the laborer ox Stands covered o’er with snow——”