Come children dear, and look around;
Behold how soft and light
The silent snow had glad the ground
In robes of purest white.
The trees seem deck'd by fairy hand,
Nor need their native green;
And every breeze appears to stand,
All hush'd, to view the scene.
You wonder how the snows were made
That dance upon the air,
As if from purer worlds they stray'd,
So lightly and so fair.
Perhaps they are the summer flowers
In northern stars that bloom,
Wafted away from icy bowers
To cheer our winter's gloom.
Perhaps they're feathers of a race
Of birds that live away,
In some cold dreary wintry place,
Far from the sun's warm ray.
And clouds, perhaps, are downy beds
On which the winds repose;
Who, when they rouse their slumb'ring heads,
Shake down the feath'ry snows.
But see, my darlings, while we stay
And gaze with fond delight,
The fairy scene soon fades away,
And mocks our raptur'd sight.
And let this fleeting vision teach
A truth you soon must know
That all the joys we here can reach
Are transient as the snow.