THE BEAUTIES OF WINTER.

Thou 'rt gone-th' abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form: yet, on my heart,
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

THE BEAUTIES OF WINTER.

THOU hast thy beauties: sterner ones I own,
Than those of thy precursors; yet to thee
Belong the charms of solemn majesty
And naked grandeur. Awful is the tone
Of thy tempestuous nights, when clouds are blown
By hurrying winds across the troubled sky:
Pensive, when softer breezes faintly sigh
Through leafless boughs, with ivy overgrown.
Thou hast thy decorations too; although

Thou art austere thy studded mantle, gay
With icy brilliants, which as proudly glow

As erst Golconda's; and thy pure array

Of regal ermine, when the drifted snow

Envelopes Nature; till her features seem
Like pale, but lovely ones, seen when we dream.

F

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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.

THE PLOUGHMAN.

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THE PLOUGHMAN.

"Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him."-Isaiah xxviii. 24-26.

AND see where surly Winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts :
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shattered forest, and the ravaged vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,

The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.

As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless: so that scarce
The bittern knows his time, with bill engulphed
To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,

And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.

Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfined, Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays. Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceives Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers

Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost.

There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke

They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Cheered by the simple song and soaring lark.
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes th' obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe.
While through the neighbouring field the sower stalks,
With measured steps; and liberal throws the grain

Into the faithful bosom of the ground:

The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.

Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man
Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow!
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!
And temper all, thou world-reviving sun,
Into the perfect year! Nor ye who live
In luxury and ease, in pomp and pride,

THE PLOUGHMAN.

Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear:
Such themes as these the rural Maro sung
To wide-imperial Rome, in the full height
Of elegance and taste, by Greece refined.
In ancient times, the sacred plough employed
The kings and awful fathers of mankind:

And some, with whom compared your insect tribes
Are but the beings of a summer's day,

Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
Of mighty war; then, with unwearied hand,

Disdaining little delicacies, seized

The plough, and greatly independent lived.

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