But wait till Spring's first days are dawni To glad and cheer thee; And then, sweet Minstrel of the morning I'd wish to hear thee. DIRGE. Those sweet spots where are "blended Their grief in transient sobs, At home with Mrs. Dobbs. But ah! for them, whose laughter Ah, for the altered visage Has caged that pert young linnet; Old Birch perhaps is boxing My Gus's ears this minute. Yet, though your young ears be as Yet grieve not! Thus ideas Pass into infant craniums. Use not complaints unseemly; Though you must work like bricks; 25 26 DIRGE.JANUARY. And it is cold, extremely, Soon sunnier will the day grow, Succeed Il Penseroso; Stick to your Magnall's Questions And Long Division sums, And come with good digestions Home when next Christmas comes. CHARLES STUART CAI JANUARY. THEN came old January, wrapped well Roman flood. EDMUND SPENSI The Faerie JANUARY.—A WINTER WALK. JANUARY. O DARK and cold! O dead and drear! Art thou indeed the glad New Year, And art thou then the final fate, The end for which our years were born, So white, so still, so desolate, A night that never leads to morn? It is not peace, this frozen calm, For wounds so healed, bleed not again. Yes, we will love thee, month of death, 27 MRS. JANE [GOODWIN] AUSTIN. A WINTER WALK. We never had believed, I wis, At primrose time when west winds stole Like thoughts of youth across the soul, In such an altered time as this, 28 A WINTER WALK. When if one little flower did peep Up through the brown and sullen grass, Feeling as sure as that this ray Which cottage children call the sun, We never could have looked, in prime Still, soft, familiar; shining bleak Or old friend, lost for years, had strange Yet though, alas! Hope did not see This winter skeleton through full leaves, Out of all bareness Faith perceives Possible life in field and tree. |