crystal dreams

Quite a bit of snow falling in Edinburgh this morning ...

... reminded me of this poem, written by John Davidson (who you can read much more about here) - I've always adored the subtle imagery that runs through these verses. It is quite a long poem, but well worth persisting with:


Snow

I

'Who affirms that crystals are alive?' 
I affirm it, let who will deny: - 
Crystals are engendered, wax and thrive, 
Wane and wither; I have seen them die. 

Trust me, masters, crystals have their day, 
Eager to attain the perfect norm, 
Lit with purpose, potent to display 
Facet, angle, colour, beauty, form. 

II

Water-crystals need for flower and root 
Sixty clear degrees, no less, no more; 
Snow, so fickle, still in this acute 
Angle thinks, and learns no other lore: 

Such its life, and such its pleasure is, 
Such its art and traffic, such its gain, 
Evermore in new conjunctions this 
Admirable angle to maintain. 

Crystalcraft in every flower and flake 
Snow exhibits, of the welkin free: 
Crystalline are crystals for the sake, 
All and singular, of crystalry. 

Yet does every crystal of the snow 
Individualize, a seedling sown 
Broadcast, but instinct with power to grow 
Beautiful in beauty of its own. 

Every flake with all its prongs and dints 
Burns ecstatic as a new-lit star: 
Men are not more diverse, finger prints 
More dissimilar than snow-flakes are. 

Worlds of men and snow endure, increase, 
Woven of power and passion to defy 
Time and travail: only races cease, 
Individual men and crystals die. 

III

Jewelled shapes of snow whose feathery showers,
Fallen or falling wither at a breath,
All afraid are they, and loth as flowers
Beasts and men to tread the way to death.

Once I saw upon an object-glass,
Martyred underneath a microscope,
One elaborate snow-flake slowly pass,
Dying hard, beyond the reach of hope.

Still from shape to shape the crystal changed,
Writhing in its agony; and still,
Less and less elaborate, arranged
Potently the angle of its will.

Tortured to a simple final form,
Angles six and six divergent beams,
Lo, in death it touched the perfect norm
Verifying all its crystal dreams!

IV

Such the noble tragedy of one
Martyred snow-flake. Who can tell the fate
Heinous and uncouth of showers undone,
Fallen in cities! - showers that expiate

Errant lives from polar worlds adrift
Where the great millennial snows abide;
Castaways from mountain-chains that lift
Snowy summits in perennial pride;

Nomad snows, or snows in evil day
Born to urban ruin, to be tossed,
Trampled, shovelled, ploughed and swept away
Down the seething sewers: all the frost

Flowers of heaven melted up with lees,
Offal, recrement, but every flake
Showing to the last in fixed degrees
Perfect crystals for the crystal's sake.

V

Usefulness of snow is but a chance
Here in temperate climes with winter sent,
Sheltering earth's prolonged hibernal trance:
All utility is accident.

Sixty clear degrees the joyful snow,
Practising economy of means,
Fashions endless beauty in, and so
Glorifies the universe with scenes

Arctic and Antarctic: stainless shrouds,
Ermine woven in silvery frost, attire
Peaks in every land among the clouds
Crowned with snows to catch the morning's fire.

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John Davidson (1857 – 1909) 

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