How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright The effluence from yon distant mountain's head, Which, strewn with snow smooth as the sky can shed,[70] Shines like another sun--on mortal sight Uprisen, as if to check approaching Night, 5 And all her twinkling stars. Who now would tread, If so he might, yon mountain's glittering head-- Terrestrial, but a surface, by the flight Of sad mortality's earth-sullying wing, Unswept, unstained? Nor shall the aërial Powers 10 Dissolve that beauty, destined to endure, White, radiant, spotless, exquisitely pure, Through all vicissitudes, till genial Spring Has[71] filled the laughing vales with welcome flowers. This sonnet originally appeared in _The Examiner_, January 28, 1816. It is rare indeed, if ever, that the Langdale Pikes retain the first snows of November till spring; although, as described in another poem, the cove on Helvellyn, in which Red Tarn lies--sheltered from the sun, and high up on the mountain--may Keep till June December's snow. See _Fidelity_ (vol. iii. p. 44), and the note to the sonnet addressed to Haydon, p. 62 of this vol.--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 70: 1837. ... as smooth as Heaven can shed, 1816. ... smooth as the heaven can shed, 1832. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote AK: _i.e._ the sonnet entitled _Composed during a Storm_, which followed _November 1_ in the edition in which the Fenwick notes first appeared.] SEPTEMBER, 1815 Composed October 1815.--Published February 11, 1816 ["For me, who under kindlier laws." This conclusion has more than once, to my great regret, excited painfully sad feelings in the hearts of young persons fond of poetry and poetic composition, by contrast of their feeble and declining health with that state of robust constitution which prompted me to rejoice in a season of frost and snow as more favourable to the Muses than summer itself.--I. F.] One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED. While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields, With ripening harvest[72] prodigally fair, In brightest sunshine bask; this nipping air, Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields 5 Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware; And whispers to the silent birds, "Prepare Against the threatening foe your trustiest shields." For me, who under kindlier laws belong To Nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry 10 Through leaves yet green,[73] and yon crystalline sky, Announce a season potent to renew, 'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song, And nobler cares than listless summer knew. This sonnet was first published in _The Examiner_, February 11, 1816. See the note to the sonnet addressed to Haydon, p. 62.--ED. [Footnote 71: 1838.