John Gardner C. Brainard, "Literary Remains,"

1832..

132

ILLUSTRATION-" The Winter comes, and where is she?"

"Chaste Snowdrop, venturous Harbinger of Spring."

THE MINISTRY OF WINTER. Lydia H. Sigourney.

134

138

139

THE ICY CHAIN.

140

141

H. W. Longfellow, "Voices of the Night," 1839. 143

Shakespeare, "Blow, blow, thou winter wind."

145

Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Sensitive Plant" 146

"The Birds drop stiff from the Frozen Air.'

CAROL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Robert Herrick, "What sweeter

music can we bring".

147

WorcestershIRE CAROL. "How grand and how bright." From a Broadsheet. 148

THE SKATERS

FROST WORK.

PAGE

William Wordsworth, "Poems of Childhood". 154

ILLUSTRATION-"The Wheel immovable and shod with Ice."

CAROL FOR THE POOR. "Be Merry All." From a Broadsheet

THE NIGHT OF THE NATIVITY. John Milton

THE CLOSING YEAR.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Winter Landscape.

NOTE ON CHRISTMAS CAROLS: With Music Collected by W. Langford.

I. From MS. of Fifteenth Century.

VIII. "Noel Carols," French and Anglo-Norman

IX. Convivial Carols

x. "The Holly and the Ivy"

N

WINTER.

ow when the cheerless empire of the sky

To Capricorn the Centaur-Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year;
Hung o'er the farthest verge of heaven, the Sun
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day.

B

Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,

Through the thick air; as, clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon descending, to the long dark night,
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.
Nor is the night unwished, while vital heat,
Light, life, and joy, the dubious day forsake.
Meanwhile, in sable cincture, shadows vast,
Deep-tinged and damp, and congregated clouds,
And all the vapoury turbulence of heaven,
Involve the face of things. Thus Winter falls
A heavy gloom oppressive o'er the world,
Through Nature shedding influence malign,
And rouses up the seeds of dark disease.
The soul of man dies in him, loathing life,
And black with more than melancholy views.
The cattle droop; and o'er the furrowed land,
Fresh from the plough, the dun discoloured flocks,
Untended spreading, crop the wholesome root.
Along the woods, along the moorish fens,
Sighs the sad Genius of the coming storm;

And up among the loose disjointed cliffs,

And fractured mountains wild, the brawling brook
And cave, presageful, send a hollow moan,
Resounding long in listening Fancy's ear.

Then comes the Father of the tempest forth,
Wrapt in black glooms. First joyless rains obscure
Drive through the mingling skies with vapour foul;
Dash on the mountain's brow, and shake the woods,
That grumbling wave below. The unsightly plain
Lies a brown deluge; as the low-bent clouds
Pour flood on flood, yet unexhausted still