frost-work

And they breathed on the pane and wrote beautiful things in frost-work, and I read them all.

Red Pottage 2004

Those few warm words, though only warm with anger, breathed on that frail frost-work of reserve; about this time, it gave note of dissolution.

Villette 2003

In Mr. Bryant's "Winter Piece" we have a brilliant description of frost-work:

The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 A Typographic Art Journal Various

What a gorgeous display of frost-work and flashing light on fantastic forms of ice!

The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2 Various

"Do you see that window?" said the Moon-Spirit, pointing to the small panes that were now covered with a delicate tracery of glittering frost-work.

Soap-Bubble Stories For Children Fanny Barry

If he had sorrows, he has made them the woof of everlasting consolation to his kind; and if, as poets are wont to whine, the outward world was cold to him, its biting air did but trace itself in loveliest frost-work of fancy on the many windows of that self-centred and cheerful soul.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859 Various

Tortuous vines, throwing off curled leaves at every flexure, like the branches of a chandelier, running more than a foot in length, and not thicker than the finger, are among the varied frost-work of these grottoes; common stalactites of carbonate of lime, although beautiful objects, lose by contrast with these ornaments, and dwindle into mere clumsy, awkward icicles.

The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 Various

In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss.

Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 3 Charles Herbert Sylvester

Rivière, in full tree-marbled calf, with delicate tooling on the back, which looks as if the frost-work from the window-pane on a cold January morning had been transmuted into gold, and laid on the leather.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 Various

Her pretty rose-wood bed was hung with lace that seemed like frost-work, instead of the orange silk drapery that fell like an avalanche of gold over the couch on which Mrs. Farnham took her nightly repose.

The Old Homestead Ann S. Stephens