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Home  »  American Sonnets  »  Edith Matilda Thomas (1854–1925)

Higginson and Bigelow, comps. American Sonnets. 1891.

Frost

Edith Matilda Thomas (1854–1925)

HOW small a tooth hath mined the season’s heart!

How cold a touch hath set the wood on fire,

Until it blazes like a costly pyre

Built for some Ganges emperor, old and swart,

Soul-sped on clouds of incense! Whose the art

That webs the streams, each morn, with silver wire,

Delicate as the tension of a lyre,—

Whose falchion pries the chestnut-burr apart?

It is the Frost, a rude and gothic sprite,

Who doth unbuild the Summer’s palaced wealth,

And puts her dear loves all to sword or flight;

Yet in the hushed, unmindful winter’s night

The spoiler builds again with jealous stealth,

And sets a mimic garden, cold and bright.