Frost Work (Thomas Bailey Aldrich)

Frost Work
These winter nights, against my window-pane
Nature with busy pencil draws designs
of ferns and blossoms and fine spray of pines,
Oak-leaf and acorn and fantastic vines,
Which she will make when summer comes again--
Quaint arabesques in argent flat and cold,
Like curious Chinese etchings...By and by,
Walking my leafy garden as of old,
These frosty fantasies shall charm my eye
In azure, damask, emerald, and gold.

                              Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1882