ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY.
I must apprise the Reader that the stoves in North Germany generally have the
impression of a galloping Horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms.
A fig for your languages, German and Norse !
Let me have the song of the Kettle ;
And the tongs and the poker, instead of that Horse
That gallops away with such fury and force
On this dreary dull plate of black metal.
Our earth is no doubt made of excellent stuff;
But her pulses beat slower and slower :
The weather in Forty was cutting and rough,
And then, as Heaven knows, the Glass stood low enough;
And now it is four degrees lower.
Here's a Fly, a disconsolate creature,--perhaps
A child of the field, or the grove;
And, sorrow for him! this dull treacherous heat
Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat,
And he creeps to the edge of my stove.
Alas! how he fumbles about the domains
Which this comfortless oven environ !
He cannot find out in what track he must crawl,
Now back to the tiles, and now back to the wall,
And now on the brink of the iron.
Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed;
The best of his skill he has tried ;
His feelers methinks I can see him put forth
To the East and the West, and the South and the North;
But he finds neither Guide-post nor Guide.
See ! his spindles sink under him, foot, leg and thigh;
His eye-sight and hearing are lost ;
Between life and death his blood freezes and thaws;
And his two pretty pinions of blue dusky gauze
Are glued to his sides by the frost.
No Brother, no Friend has he near him-while I
Can draw warmth from the cheek of my Love;
As blest and as glad in this desolate gloom,
As if green summer grass were the floor of my room,
And woodbines were hanging above.
Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless Thing!
Thy life I would gladly sustain
Till summer comes up from the South, and with crowds
Of thy brethren a march thou shouldst sound through the
clouds,
And back to the forests again.
Written at a small Distance from my House, and sent by my little Boy to the
Person to whom they are addressed.
It is the first mild day of March :
Each minute sweeter than before,
The Red-breast sings from the tall Larch
That stands beside our door.
There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.
My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.
Edward will come with
you; Put on with speed your woodland dress ; And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness.
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living Calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.
Love, now an universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth :
-It is the hour of feeling.
One moment now may give us more
Than fifty years of reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.
Some silent laws our hearts may make,
Which they shall long obey :
We for the
take Our temper from to-day.
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