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.