Stephenson's Graded Classical Poems

The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed
While childish fancy, prompt to tell
The meaning of the miracle,
Whispered the old rhyme : "Under the tree
When fire outdoors burns merrily,
there the witches are making tea."

The moon above the easter wood
Shone at its full; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the somber green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed, wherever it fell,
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic beat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed.
The house dog, on his paws outspread,
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;

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