Leigh Gordon Giltner

A Winter Landscape

A mystic world mantled in white simarre
Arachne-spun with argent woof; her wede
Starred with strange crystals wrought from frozen spar,
Sprent with pearl frost-flowers; girt with diamond brede,
Rubied with berries red as drops of blood,
Befringed with gelid, many-irised gems;
Broidered with lace weft of an elfin brood--
    Hoar filagree to deck her garment hems.

Sheer slanting down the sky an opal light
Pierces the snow-blur's veil of wannish gray,
In iridescent sheen, tingeing the dazzling white
With amethystine, gold or beryl ray.
Along the West the transient sunset gleam--
An ardor brief!   Crimson on crimson grows
Till all the waning sky, incarnadine,
      Glows like blown petals of a shattered rose.