WINTER.
Written at Two-Waters, Herts, 11th January 1840, for a Lady's Album.
Come! we will wander to the lone hill-side,
And, awe-struck, view the winter in its pride;—
Crispy the grass and scant;
The little flowers have vanished, not a trace
Is left of blossom on pale Nature's face:—
Restraint lies mighty on the stream—it sings
No more—dead, dead now,—like all other things;
The trees, as spectres gaunt,
Or churchyard monuments, all scattered stand,
As if they mourned the bareness of the land,—
Meagre as pallid want.
Where be the fairies now, the little fays,
That dance in buttercups in summer days,
Though only Poets view
Their gambols in the flowers and in the rays
Of noonday, which the common sight gainsays,
To Fancy ever new!
The grasshopper is gone. Ah, me! can death
Have will to stop its modicum of breath?
Swift fly the clouds, why should they fly so swift?
Come they like Angel-spirits, with a gift
Of mercy to mankind?
In this drear time, the heart asks where are they
That tell of sunshine being on the way?
The harbingers of light and genial heat,
That make the meadows and the valleys sweet
When softly sighs the wind:
Make rich the upland grass to mountain goat,
When balm and beauty through the ether float,
Like gossamer reclined.
Oh! for a cheerful note from blackbird—gone,
All gone, the songster and his song are flown;
There's nought to cheer the ear.
Oh! now to list the mavis in the wood,—
The psalms of Nature's singers, always good,
Bring solace to the year.
Oh! for one glimpse of sunshine, to remind
The Earth of summer, ever bland and kind.