The snow lay hard on the hills. You could burn your eyes By too-long-looking into the cold ice-lens Of infinite, pure, glittering, winter air. It was as cold as that, as sparkling as that, Where the crystal trees stood up like strange, brittle toys After the sleet storm passed, till the setting sun Hung the glass boughs with rainbows frozen to gems And the long blue shadows pooled in the still hill-hollows.

The white and the purple lilacs of New England Are frozen long, they will not bloom till the rains, But when you look from the window, you see them there, A great field of white lilacs. A gathered sheaf Of palest blossoms of lilac, stained with the purple evening.