There is a charm in the sudden and total disappearance even of the
grassy green. All the "old familiar faces" of nature are for awhile out
of sight, and out of mind. That white silence shed by heaven over earth
carries with it, far and wide, the pure peace of another region--almost
another life. No image is there to tell of this restless and noisy
world. The cheerfulness of reality kindles up our reverie ere it becomes
a dream; and we are glad to feel our whole being complexioned by the
passionless repose. If we think at all of human life, it is only of the
young, the fair, and the innocent. "Pure as snow" are words then felt to
be most holy, as the image of some beautiful and beloved being comes and
goes before our eyes--brought from a far distance in this our living
world, or from a distance--far, far, farther still--in the world beyond
the grave--the image of a virgin growing up sinlessly to womanhood among
her parents' prayers, or of some spiritual creature who expired long
ago, and carried with her her native innocence unstained to heaven.

Such Spiritual Creature--too spiritual long to sojourn below the
skies--wert Thou, whose rising and whose setting--both most
starlike--brightened at once all thy native vale, and at once left it in
darkness. Thy name has long slept in our heart--and there let it sleep
unbreathed--even as, when we are dreaming our way through some solitary
place, without speaking, we bless the beauty of some sweet wild-flower,
pensively smiling to us through the snow!

The Sabbath returns on which, in the little kirk among the hills, we saw
thee baptized. Then comes a wavering glimmer of seven sweet years, that
to Thee, in all their varieties, were but as one delightful season, one
blessed life--and, finally, that other Sabbath, on which, at thy own
dying request--between services thou wert buried!