107

The Snow-Storm.

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.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Sonnet.

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.

LORD THURLOW.

To the Redbreast.

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-

ers

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.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

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.

Sonnet.

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.

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

109

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.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Hymn

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

ers

Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God!-let the torrents, like a shout of nations,

prayer

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

voice!

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

serene,

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.