E FROSTED PANE

When I wakened, very early,
All my window-pane was pearly
With a sparkling little picture traced in lines of shining white;
Some magician with a gleaming
Frosty brush, while I was dreaming,
Must have come and by the starlight worked through all the quiet night.

He had painted frosty people,
And a frosty church and steeple,
And a frosty bridge and river tumbling over frosty rocks;
Frosty mountain peaks that glimmered,
And fine frosty ferns that shimmered,
And a frosty little pasture full of frosty little flocks.

It was all touched in so lightly
And it glittered, oh, so whitely,
That I gazed and gazed in wonder at the lovely painted pane;
Then the sun rose high and higher
With his wand of golden fire
Till, alas, my picture vanished and I looked for it in vain!

THE FIRST SNOW

The snow! the snow! Whoop! Hooray! Ho! Ho!
Plunge in the deep drifts and toss it up so!
Rollick and roll in the feathery fleece
Plucked out of the breasts of the marvelous geese
By the little old woman who lives in the sky;
Have ever you seen her? No, neither have I!

GRANDFATHER KNOWS

Grandfather says of all things
The silliest he's heard
Is that some children call things
They've never seen, "absurd!"
And have their doubts of true things,
And won't believe, because
They say, "If you but knew things,
There _is_ no Santa Claus!"

Grandfather says he _knows_ him,
And sees him every year,
And Santa often shows him
The playthings he brings here;
He says, too, Santa told him
If any girls and boys
Laugh at and won't uphold him,
They'll not get any toys!

SLEIGH-BELLS

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!
Happy winter-time!
Baby's eyes a-twinkle,
Hear the sleigh-bells chime!

Each one rings a merry
Ting-a-ling-a-ling!
For a sleigh-bell fairy
Hides inside to sing.

See them quake and quiver,
Up and downward tossed,
Seems as if they shiver
In the nipping frost!

Shiver into laughter,
Jolly little elves!
Till we laugh thereafter,
Merry as themselves!

THE RED-BIRD

Swept lightly by the south wind
The elm-leaves softly stirred,
And in their pale green clusters