Park Benjamin (1809–1864)

FROM their innumerable breasts and wings—

All undiscerned by these our mortal eyes,

Hid in the folds of yonder misty skies,

More like imagined sprites than real things—

Celestial doves are shedding their white plumes,

And the whole land is covered with a shower

Of motes as fair as is an unsunned flower

Which, when it opens, yields its short-lived blooms

Vestured all over like a bride in white,

But colder than a corpse within its shroud;

The earth sleeps sparkling in the silver light

Of the soft snow, which, like a feathery cloud,

Still falls, as gently as Hope’s dreams, or Love’s,

From the pure forms of those celestial doves.