behind me, and, as I stood on the hill
just before you enter the village, the stillness of the fields around
me was delicious, broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which
runs too swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook in
_Sir Launfal_ was drawn from it." See the poem _Beaver Brook_
(originally called _The Mill_), and the winter picture in _An
Indian-Summer Reverie_, lines 148-196.

184. Groined: Groined arches are formed by the intersection of two
arches crossing at any angle, forming a ribbed vault; a characteristic
feature of Gothic architecture.

190. Forest-crypt: The crypt of a church is the basement, filled
with arched pillars that sustain the building. The cavern of the
brook, as the poet will have us imagine it, is like this subterranean
crypt, where the pillars are like trees and the groined arches like
interlacing branches, decorated with frost leaves. The poet seems to
have had in mind throughout the description the interior of the
Gothic cathedrals, as shown by the many suggestive terms used,
"groined," "crypt," "aisles," "fretwork," and "carvings."

193. Fretwork: The ornamental work carved in intricate patterns, in
oak or stone, on the ceilings of old halls and churches.

195. Sharp relief: When a figure stands out prominently from the
marble or other material from which it is cut, it is said to be in
"high relief," in distinction from "low relief," _bas relief_.

196. Arabesques: Complicated patterns of interwoven foliage, flowers
and fruits, derived from Arabian art. Lowell had undoubtedly studied
many times the frost designs on the window panes.

201. That crystalled the beams, etc.: That caught the beams of moon
and sun as in a crystal. For "that" the original edition has "which."

204. Winter-palace of ice: An allusion, apparently, to the
ice-palace built by the Empress of Russia, Catherine II, "most
magnificent and mighty freak. The wonder of the North," Cowper called
it. Compare Lowell's description of the frost work with Cowper's
similar description in _The Task_, in the beginning of Book V.

205-210. 'Twas as if every image, etc.: Note the exquisite fancy in
these lines. The elves have preserved in the ice the pictures of
summer foliage and clouds that were mirrored in the water as models
for another summer.

211. The hall: In the old castles the hall was always the large
banqueting room, originally the common living room. Here all large
festivities would take pl