Selected Poems of Francis Thompson — To a Snowflake

TO A SNOW-FLAKE

What heart could have thought you?

-- Past our devisal (O filigree petal!

) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost?

Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapour?

-- "God was my shaper.

Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapour, To lust of His mind:-- Thou could'st not have thought me!

So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost."