ANNOUNCED by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow; and, driving o'er the fields Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry. Out of an unseen quarry, evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof; Round every windward stake, or tree, or door Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage; naught cares he For number or proportion. Mockingly, On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths, A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn; Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.
TO A BIRD THAT HAUNTED THE WATERS OF
LAAKEN IN THE WINTER.
O MELANCHOLY bird, a winter's day
Thou standest by the margin of the pool,
And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school
To patience, which all evil can allay.
God has appointed thee the fish thy prey, And given thyself a lesson to the fool Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule,
And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.
There need not schools nor the professor's chair, Though these be good, true wisdom to impart ; He who has not enough for these to spare, Of time or gold, may yet amend his heart, And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fairNature is always wise in every part.
SWEET bird! that sing'st away the early hours Of winters past or coming, void of care; Well pleased with delights which present are, Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flow-
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare, And what dear gifts on thee He did not spare, A stain to human sense in sin that lowers. What soul can be so sick which by thy songs (Attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs, And lift a reverend eye and thought to Heaven! Sweet, artless songster! thou my mind dost raise To airs of spheres-yes, and to angels' lays.
Afternoon in February.
THE day is ending, The night is descending; The marsh is frozen, The river dead.
Through clouds like ashes The red sun flashes
On village windows That glimmer red.
The snow recommences; The buried fences Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;
While through the meadows, Like fearful shadows, Slowly passes
A funeral train.
The bell is pealing, And every feeling Within me responds
To the dismal knell ;
Shadows are trailing, My heart is bewailing And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
A Song for the Seasons.
WHEN the merry lark doth gild
With his song the summer hours, And their nests the swallows build
In the roofs and tops of towers, And the golden broom-flower burns All about the waste,
And the maiden May returns With a pretty haste,-
Then, how merry are the times!
The Summer times! the Spring times!
Now, from off the ashy stone
The chilly midnight cricket crieth,
And all merry birds are flown,
And our dream of pleasure dieth;
Now the once blue, laughing sky
Saddens into gray,
And the frozen rivers sigh, Pining all away!
Now, how solemn are the times! The Winter times! the Night times!
Yet, be merry: all around
Is through one vast change revolving; Even Night, who lately frowned,
Is in paler dawn dissolving; Earth will burst her fetters strange, And in Spring grow free;
All things in the world will change, Save my love for thee!
Sing then, hopeful are all times! Winter, Summer, Spring times!
BARRY CORNWALL.
Wirge for the Year.
ORPHAN Hours, the Year is dead, Come and sigh, come and weep! Merry Hours, smile instead,
For the Year is but asleep: See, it smiles as it is sleeping, Mocking your untimely weeping.
As an earthquake rocks a corse In its coffin in the clay, So white Winter, that rough nurse, Rocks the dead-cold Year to-day; Solemn Hours! wail aloud For your mother in her shroud.
As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days
Rocks the Year. Be calm and mild, Trembling Hours; she will arise With new love within her eyes.
January gray is here,
Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier;
March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O ye Hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
DIE down, O dismal day! and let me live.
And come, blue deeps! magnificently strewn With colored clouds - large, light, and fugitiveBy upper winds through pompous motions blown. Now it is death in life-a vapor dense
Creeps round my window till I cannot see The far snow-shining mountains, and the glens Shagging the mountain-tops. O God! make free
This barren, shackled earth, so deadly cold
Breathe gently forth Thy spring, till winter flies In rude amazement, fearful and yet bold, While she performs her customed charities.
I weigh the loaded hours till life is bare
O God! for one clear day, a snowdrop, and sweet air! DAVID GRAY.
INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS.
Hymn to the Spirit of Nature.
LIFE of Life! Thy lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles before they dwindle
Make the cold air fire; then screen them In those locks, where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! Thy limbs are burning Through the veil which seems to hide them, As the radiant lines of morning
Through thin clouds, ere they divide them; And this atmosphere divinest Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.
Fair are others: none beholds Thee;
But thy voice sounds low and tender Like the fairest, for it folds thee
From the sight, that liquid splendor; And all feel, yet see thee never,— As I feel now, lost for ever!
Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest, Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness Till they fail, as I am failing, Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
Influence of Natural Objects.
WISDOM and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul, that art the eternity of thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul- Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man, But with high objects, with enduring things, With Life and Nature; purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear,-until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me
With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine. Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the Summer long; And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons. Happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village-clock tolled six; I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,-the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle. With the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed; while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star- Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain. And oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping thro' the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me,-even as if the Earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler; and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc ! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form, Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black- An ebon mass. Methinks thou piercest it, As with a wedge! But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee, Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain- Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flow
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God!-let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Didst vanish from my thought. Entranced in Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
I worshipped the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet we know not we are listening to it, Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought-
Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy- Till the dilating soul, enrapt, tranfused, Into the mighty vision passing — there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven! Awake, my soul! not only passive praise Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake, Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake! Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale!
Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars, Or when they climb the sky or when they sink Companion of the morning-star at dawn, Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn Co-herald-wake, oh wake, and utter praise! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth? Who filled thy countenance with rosy light? Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise! Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure
Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breast- Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me- Rise, oh ever rise! Rise like a cloud of incense, from the Earth! Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills, Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven, Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
ELLE avait dix ans, et moi trente; J'étais pour elle l'univers.
Oh! comme l'herbe est odorante Sous les arbres profonds et verts!
Elle faisait mon sort prospère,
Mon travail léger, mon ciel bleu. Lorsqu'elle me disait: Mon père,
Tout mon cœur s'écriait: Mon Dieu !
Les anges se miraient en elle.
Que son bonjour était charmant !
Le ciel mettait dans sa prunelle
Ce regard qui jamais ne ment.
Oh! je l'avais, si jeune encore,
Vue apparaître en mon destin ! C'était l'enfant de mon aurore, Et mon étoile du matin !
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