The little wind-flower, whose just-opened eye
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at―
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves
With unexpected beauty, for the time
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar.
And ere it comes, the encountering winds shall oft
Muster their wrath again, and rapid clouds
Shade heaven, and bounding on the frozen earth
Shall fall their volleyed stores, rounded like hail
And white like snow, and the loud North again
Shall buffet the vexed forests in his rage.
AIL, scenes of desolation and despair,
Keen Winter's overbearing sport and scorn! Torn by his rage, in ruins as you are,
To me more pleasing than a Summer's morn Your shattered state appears;-despoiled and bare, Stripped of your clothing, naked and forlorn :— Yes, Winter's havoc ! wretched as you shine,
Dismal to others as your fate may seem, Your fate is pleasing to this heart of mine, Your wildest horrors I the most esteem:
The ice-bound floods that still with rigour freeze, The snow-clothed valley, and the naked tree, These sympathising scenes my heart can please,
Distress is theirs-and they resemble me.
OUD rage the winds without. The wintry Cloud,
O'er the cold North Star casts her flitting shroud;
And Silence, pausing in some snow-clad dale,
Starts, as she hears, by fits, the shrieking gale;
Where now, shut out from every still retreat,
Her pine-clad summit, and her woodland seat,
Shall Meditation, in her saddest mood,
Retire, o'er all her pensive stores to brood?
Shivering and blue, the peasant eyes askance
The drifted fleeces that around him dance,
And hurries on his half-averted form,
Stemming the fury of the side-long storm.
Him soon shall greet his snow-topt cot of thatch,
Soon shall his numbed hand tremble on the latch,
Soon from his chimney's nook the cheerful flame
Diffuse a genial warmth throughout his frame ;
Round the light fire, while roars the north wind loud,
What merry groups of vacant faces crowd;
These hail his coming these his meal prepare,
And boast in all that cot no lurking care.
What though the social circle be denied,
Even Sadness brightens at her own fireside,
Loves, with fixed eye, to watch the fluttering blaze,
While musing Memory dwells on former days;
Or Hope, blest spirit! smiles and still forgiven,
Forgets the passport, while she points to heaven.
Then heap the fire,-shut out the biting air,
And from its station wheel the easy chair:
Thus fenced and warm, in silent fit, 'tis sweet
To hear without the bitter tempest beat,
All, all alone—to sit, and muse, and sigh,
The pensive tenant of obscurity.
HERE the North Pole, in moody solitude,
Spreads her huge tracks and frozen wastes around,
There ice-rocks piled aloft, in order rude,
Form a gigantic hall, where never sound
Startled dull Silence' ear, save when profound
The smoke-frost muttered: there drear Cold for aye
Thrones him, and, fixed on his primeval mound,
Ruin, the giant, sits: while stern Dismay
Stalks like some woe-struck man along the desert way.
In that drear spot, grim Desolation's lair,
No sweet remain of life encheers the sight,
The dancing heart's blood in an instant there
Would freeze to marble. Mingling day and night
(Sweet interchange, which makes our labours light,)
Are there unknown: while in the summer skies
The Sun rolls ceaseless round his heavenly height
Nor ever sets, till from the scene he flies,
And leaves the long bleak night of half the year to rise..
HE gentle pair that in these lonely shades,
Wandering, at eve or morn, I oft have seen,
Now all in vain I seek at eve or morn,
With drooping wing, forlorn,
Along the grove, along the daisied green.
For them I've warbled many a summer's day,
'Till the light dew impearled all the plain,
And the glad shepherd shut his nightly fold;
Stories of love and high adventure old
Were the dear subjects of my tuneful strain.
Ah! where is now the hope of all my lay?
Now they, perchance, that heard them all are dead!
With them the meed of melody is fled,
And fled with them the listening ear of Praise.
Vainly I dreamt, that when the wintry sky
Scattered the white flood on the wasted plain,
When not one berry, not one leaf was nigh,
To soothe keen Hunger's pain,
Vainly I dreamt my songs might not be vain.
That oft within the hospitable hall
Some scattered fragments haply I might find,
Some friendly crumb perchance for me designed,
When seen despairing on the neighbouring wall.
Deluded birds, those hopes are now no more!
Dull Time has blasted the despairing year,
And Winter frowns severe,
Wrapping his wan limbs in his mantle hoar.
Yet not within the hospitable hall
The cheerful sound of human voice I hear;
No piteous eye is near,
To see me drooping on the lonely wall.
HE wintry winds have ceased to blow,
And trembling leaves appear;
And fairest flowers succeed the snow,
And hail the infant year.
So, when the world and all its woes
Are vanished far away,
Fair scenes and wonderful repose
Shall bless the new-born day.
When, from the confines of the grave,
The body too shall rise;
No more precarious Passion's slave,
Nor Error's sacrifice.
'Tis but a sleep-and Sion's King
Will call the many dead:
'Tis but a sleep-and then we sing, O'er dreams of sorrow fled.
Yes! wintry winds have ceased to blow, And trembling leaves appear,
And Nature has her types to show
Throughout the varying year.
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