The loftiest level of the snow-piled fields,

Clear eyed, but unobservant, noting not,

That all the plain beneath me and the hills

Took on a change of color splendid, gradual,

Leaving no spot the same; nor that the sun

Now like a fiery torrent overflamed

The great line of the west. Ere yet I turned

With long stride homeward, being heated

With the loose swinging motion, weary too,

Nor uninclined to rest, a buried fence,

Whose topmost log just shouldered from the snow,

Made me a seat, and thence with heated cheeks,

Grazed by the northwind's edge of stinging ice,

I looked far out upon the snow-bound waste,

The lifting hills and intersecting forests,

The scarce marked courses of the buried streams,

And as I looked lost memory of the frost,

Transfixed with wonder, overborne with joy.

I saw them in their silence and their beauty,

Swept by the sunset's rapid hand of fire,

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