Who can over-ride you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast;
You shall see a fox die
Ere an hour be past.
Go! and rest to-morrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O'er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious South-wind
Breathe in lovers' sighs,

While the lazy gallants
Bask in ladies' eyes.
What does he but soften
Heart alike and pen?
'Tis the hard grey weather
Breeds hard English men.
What's the soft South-wester?
'Tis the ladies' breeze,
Bringing home their true loves
Out of all the seas:

But the black North-easter,

Through the snow-storm hurled, Drives our English hearts of oak

Seaward round the world! Come! as came our fathers,

Heralded by thee, Conquering from the eastward,

Lords by land and sea. Come! and strong within us

Stir the Vikings' blood; Bracing brain and sinew; Blow, thou wind of God!

Charles Kingsley.

Winter

OW large that thrush looks on the bare thorntree!

H

A swarm of such, three little months ago,
Had hidden in the leaves and let none know
Save by the outburst of their minstrelsy.
A white flake here and there-a snow-lily

Of last night's frost-our naked flower-beds hold;
And for a rose-flower on the darkling mould
The hungry redbreast gleams. No bloom, no bee.

The current shudders to its ice-bound sedge:

Nipped in their bath, the stark reeds one by one Flash each its clinging diamond in the sun: 'Neath winds which for this Winter's sovereign pledge Shall curb great king-masts to the ocean's edge And leave memorial forest-kings o'erthrown.

S

D. G. Rossetti.

The Forest in Winter

WEET are the harmonies of spring;
Sweet is the summer's evening gale,
And sweet the autumnal winds that shake
The many-colour'd grove

And pleasant to the sober'd soul

The silence of the wintry scene,

When nature shrouds herself, entranced
In deep tranquillity.

Not undelightful now to roam

The wild heath sparkling on the sight;
Not undelightful now to pace

The forest's ample rounds;

And see the spangled branches shine,
And mark the moss of many a hue
That varies the old tree's brown bark,
Or o'er the grey stone spreads;

And mark the cluster'd berries bright
Amid the holly's gay green leaves;
The ivy round the leafless oak
That clasps its foliage close.

A Fall of Snow

OW, the woods

Southey.

Bow their hoar heads; and, ere the languid

sun,

Faint from the west, emits his evening ray,

Earth's universal face, deep-hid and chill,

Is one wild dazzling waste, that buries wide
The works of man. Drooping, the labourer-ox
Stands covered o'er with snow, and then demands
The fruit of all his toil. The fowls of heaven,
Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The red-breast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half afraid, he first,
Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights
On the warm hearth; then, hopping o'er the floor,
Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is;
Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs
Attract his slender feet. The foodless wilds

Pour forth their brown inhabitants.

The hare,

Though timorous of heart, and hard beset

By death in various forms, dark snares, and dogs,
And more unpitying men, the garden seeks,
Urged on by fearless want. The bleating kind
Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glistening earth,
With looks of dumb despair; then, sad-dispersed,
Dig for the withered herbs through heaps of snow.

Thomson.

Winter

HE frost is here,

And fuel is dear,

And woods are sear,

And fires burn clear,

And frost is here

And has bitten the heel of the going year.

Bite, frost, bite,

You roll up away from the light

The blue wood-louse, and the plump dormouse, And the bees are stilled, and the flies are kill'd, And you bite far into the heart of the house, But not into mine.

Bite, frost, bite,

The woods are all the searer,

The fuel is all the dearer,

The fires are all the clearer,

My spring is all the nearer,

You have bitten into the heart of the earth,

But not into mine.

Tennyson.

HE days are sad, it is the Holy tide:

The winter morn is short, the night is long; So let the lifeless hours be glorified

With deathless thoughts and echoed in
sweet song:

And through the sunset of this purple cup
They will resume the roses of their prime,

And the old dead will hear us, and wake up,

Pass with dim smiles, and make our hearts sublime!