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I may not quit my home; For maiden’s love or maiden’s plight I dare not o’er my threshold roam; For field and flood and vale and height Are chained with frost, with snows are white! Close as the scales on dragon’s breast, Those flakes would cluster round my vest; And in a miller’s lowly guise, Conceal the bard from beauty’s eyes! Brightly to all created things The lime-white vest of winter clings; Fair as a grey stoled hermit’s robe It wraps this dark and dreary globe! O’er every wood, o’er every grove, Its veil of dazzling light is wove; Spotless and glittering as mail, Those snowy showers at random sail; Not April’s choicest flowers outvie Those chilly blossoms of the sky. Those show’rs of foam intensely driven, In fleecy clouds from earth to heaven! They seem mid Gwyneth’s stormy skies, Like the white bees of Paradise !