doth all unite,--
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 170
The heart outstretches its eager palms,
For a god goes with it and makes it store[17]
To the soul that was starving in darkness before."

PRELUDE TO PART SECOND.

Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak,
From the snow five thousand summers old: 175
On open wold and hill-top bleak
It had gathered all the cold,
And whirled it like a sheet on the wanderer's cheek;
It carried a shiver everywhere
From the unleafed boughs and pastures bare; 180
The little brook heard it and built a roof
'Neath which he could house him, winter-proof:
All night by the white stars' frosty gleams
He groined[18] his arches and matched his beams;
Slender and clear were his crystal spars 185
As the lashes of light that trim the stars;
He sculptured every summer delight
In his halls and chambers out of sight;
Sometimes his tinkling waters slipt
Down through a frost-leaved forest-crypt.[19] 190
Long, sparkling aisles of steel-stemmed trees
Bending to counterfeit a breeze;
Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew
But silvery mosses that downward grew;
Sometimes it was carved in sharp relief[20] 195
With quaint arabesques[21] of ice-fern leaf;
Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear
For the gladness of heaven to shine through, and here
He had caught the nodding bulrush-tops
And hung them thickly with diamond drops, 200
Which crystalled the beams of moon and sun,
And made a star of every one:
So mortal builder's most rare device
Could match this winter-palace of ice;
'T was as if every image that mirrored lay 205
In his depths serene through the summer day,
Each flitting shadow of earth and sky,
Lest the happy model should be lost,
Had been mimicked in fairy masonry
By the elfin builders of the frost. 210

Within the hall are song and laughter,
The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly,
And sprouting is every corbel[22] and rafter
With the lightsome green of ivy and holly;
Through the deep gulf[23] of the chimney wide 215
Wallows the Yule-log's[24] roaring tide;
The broad flame-pennons droop and flap
And belly and tug as a flag in the wind;
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,
Hunted to death in its galleries blind;