"Walk now among the forest trees: Saidst thou that they were stripped and bare? Each heavy bough is bending down With snowy leaves and flowers,--the crown Which Winter regally doth wear. "'Tis well; thy summer garden ne'er Was lovelier, with its birds and flowers, Than is this silent place of snow, With feathery branches drooping low, Wreathing around thee shadowy bowers!" While on the subject of the natural beauties of this season, we must introduce our readers to some admirable verses which have been furnished to us by our friend Mr. Stoddart, the author of that fine poem the "Death-Wake," and in which its peculiar aspects are described with a very graphic pen: A WINTER LANDSCAPE. The dew-lark sitteth on the ice, beside the reedless rill; The leaf of the hawthorn flutters on the solitary hill; The wild lake weareth on its heart a cold and changed look, And meets, at the lip of its moon-lit marge, the spiritual brook. Idly basks the silver swan, near to the isle of trees, And to its proud breast come and kiss the billow and the breeze; They wash the eider as they play about the bird of grace, And boom, in the same slow mood, away, to the moveless mountain-base. The chieftain-deer, amid the pines, his antlered forehead shows, And scarcely are the mosses bent where that stately one arose; His step is as the pressure of a light beloved hand, And he looketh like a poet's dream in some enchanted land! A voice of Winter, on the last wild gust of Autumn borne, Is hurried from the hills afar, like the windings of a horn; And solemnly and heavily the silver birches groan, And the old ash waves his wizard hand to the dim, mysterious tone. And noiselessly, across the heaven, a gray and vapory shred Is wandering, fed by phantom clouds that one by one are led Out of the wide North, where they grow within the aged sea, And in their coils the yellow moon is laboring lazily! She throws them from her mystic urn, as they were beckoned back By some enchantress, working out her spells upon their track; Or gathers up their fleecy folds, and shapes them, as they go, To hang around her beautiful form a tracery of snow. Lo, Winter cometh!--and his hoar is heavy on the hill, And curiously the frostwork forms below the rimy rill; The birth of morn is a gift of pearl to the heath and willow-tree, And the green rush hangs o'er its water-bed, shining and silvery. From the calm of the lake a vapor steals its restless wreath away, And leaves not a crisp on the quiet tarn but the wake of the swan at play; The deer holds up the glistening heath, where his hoof is lightly heard, And the dew-lark circleth to his song,--sun-lost and lonely bird! But the season hath other striking aspects of its own. Pleasant, says Southey,--