But Winter has yet brighter scenes—he boasts

Splendors beyond what gorgeous summer knows;

Or Autumn with his many fruits, and woods

All flushed with many hues. Come when the rains

Have glazed the snow and clothed the trees with ice,

While the slant sun of February pours

Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach!

The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps,

And the broad arching portals of the grove

Welcome thy entering. Look! the massy trunks

Are cased in the pure crystal; each light spray,

Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven,

Is studded with its trembling water-drops,

That glimmer with an amethystine light.

But round the parent-stem the long low boughs

Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide

The glassy floor. Oh! you might deem the spot

The spacious cavern of some virgin mine,

Deep in the womb of earth—where the gems grow,

And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud

While amethyst and topaz—and the place

Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam

That dwells in them. * * * *

—William Cullen Bryant, “A Winter Piece.”