He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes
          You may trace his footsteps now
     On the naked woods and the blasted fields and the
          brown hill's withered brow.
     He has smitten the leaves of the gray old trees
          where their pleasant green came forth,
     And the winds, which follow wherever he goes,
          have shaken them down to earth.

     He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes!
          from the frozen Labrador,
     From the icy bridge of the Northern seas, which
          the white bear wanders o'er,
     Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the
          luckless forms below
     In the sunless cold of the lingering night into
          marble statues grow

     He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes
          on the rushing Northern blast,
     And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his
          fearful breath went past.
     With an unscorched wing he has hurried on,
          where the fires of Hecla glow
     On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient
          ice below.

     He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes
          and the quiet lake shall feel
     The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to
          the skater's heel;
     And the streams which danced on the broken
          rocks, or sang to the leaning grass,
     Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in
          mournful silence pass.
     He comes,—he comes,—the Frost Spirit comes!
          Let us meet him as we may,
     And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil
          power away;
     And gather closer the circle round, when that
          fire-light dances high,
     And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as
          his sounding wing goes by!

     1830.

     "The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south,
     which they call Merrimac."—SIEUR. DE MONTS, 1604.

     Stream of my fathers! sweetly still
     The sunset rays thy valley fill;
     Poured slantwise down the long defile,
     Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile.
     I see the winding Powow fold
     The green hill in its belt of gold,
     And following down its wavy line,
     Its sparkling waters blend with thine.
     There's not a tree upon thy side,
     Nor rock, which thy returning tide
     As yet hath left abrupt and stark
     Above thy evening water-mark;
     No calm cove with its rocky hem,
     No isle whose emerald swells begin
     Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail
     Bowed to the freshening ocean gale;
     No small boat with its busy oars,
     Nor gray wall sloping to thy shores;
     Nor farm-house with its maple shade,
     Or rigid poplar colonnade,
     But lies distinct and full in sight,
     Beneath this gush of sunset light.
     Centuries ago, that harbor-bar,
     Stretching its length of foam afar,
     And Salisbury's beach of shining sand,
     And yonder island's wave-smoothed strand,
     Saw the adventurer's tiny sail,
     Flit, stooping from the eastern gale;
     And o'er these woods and waters broke
     The cheer from Britain's hearts of oak,
     As brightly on the voyager's eye,
     Weary of forest, sea, and sky,
     Breaking the dull continuous wood,
     The Merrimac rolled down his flood;
     Mingling that clear pellucid brook,
     Which channels vast Agioochook
     When spring-time's sun and shower unlock
     The frozen fountains of the rock,
     And more abundant waters given
     From that pure lake, "The Smile of Heaven,"
     Tributes from vale and mountain-side,—
     With ocean's dark, eternal tide!

     On yonder rocky cape, which braves
     The stormy challenge of the waves,
     Midst tangled vine and dwarfish wood,
     The hardy Anglo-Saxon stood,
     Planting upon the topmost crag
     The staff of England's battle-flag;
     And, while from out its heavy fold
     Saint George's crimson cross unrolled,
     Midst roll of drum and trumpet blare,
     And weapons brandishing in air,
     He gave to that lone promontory
     The sweetest name in all his story;
     Of her, the flower of Islam's daughters,
     Whose harems look on Stamboul's waters,—
     Who, when the chance of war had bound
     The Moslem chain his limbs around,
     Wreathed o'er with silk that iron chain,
     Soothed with her smiles his hours of pain,
     And fondly to her youthful slave
     A dearer gift than freedom gave.

     But look! the yellow light no more
     Streams down on wave and verdant shore;
     And clearly on the calm air swells
     The twilight voice of distant bells.
     From Ocean's bosom, white and thin,
     The mists come slowly rolling in;
     Hills, woods, the river's rocky rim,
     Amidst the sea—like vapor swim,
     While yonder lonely coast-light, set
     Within its wave-washed minaret,
     Half quenched, a beamless star and pale,
     Shines dimly through its cloudy veil!

     Home of my fathers!—I have stood
     Where Hudson rolled his lordly flood
     Seen sunrise rest and sunset fade
     Along his frowning Palisade;
     Looked down the Appalachian peak
     On Juniata's silver streak;
     Have seen along his valley gleam
     The Mohawk's softly winding stream;
     The level light of sunset shine
     Through broad Potomac's hem of pine;
     And autumn's rainbow-tinted banner
     Hang lightly o'er the Susquehanna;
     Yet wheresoe'er his step might be,
     Thy wandering child looked back to thee!
     Heard in his dreams thy river's sound
     Of murmuring on its pebbly bound,
     The unforgotten swell and roar
     Of waves on thy familiar shore;
     And saw, amidst the curtained gloom
     And quiet of his lonely room,
     Thy sunset scenes before him pass;
     As, in Agrippa's magic glass,
     The loved and lost arose to view,
     Remembered groves in greenness grew,
     Bathed still in childhood's morning dew,
     Along whose bowers of beauty swept
     Whatever Memory's mourners wept,
     Sweet faces, which the charnel kept,
     Young, gentle eyes, which long had slept;
     And while the gazer leaned to trace,
     More near, some dear familiar face,
     He wept to find the vision flown,—
     A phantom and a dream alone!

     1841.

     The sunlight glitters keen and bright,
     Where, miles away,
     Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
     A luminous belt, a misty light,
     Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.

     The tremulous shadow of the Sea!
     Against its ground
     Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,
     Still as a picture, clear and free,
     With varying outline mark the coast for miles around.

     On—on—we tread with loose-flung rein
     Our seaward way,
     Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain,
     Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane,
     And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.

     Ha! like a kind hand on my brow
     Comes this fresh breeze,
     Cooling its dull and feverish glow,
     While through my being seems to flow
     The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas!

     Now rest we, where this grassy mound
     His feet hath set
     In the great waters, which have bound
     His granite ankles greenly round
     With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.

     Good-by to Pain and Care! I take
     Mine ease to-day
     Here where these sunny waters break,
     And ripples this keen breeze, I shake
     All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.

     I draw a freer breath, I seem
     Like all I see—
     Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam
     Of sea-birds in the slanting beam,
     And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free.

     So when Time's veil shall fall asunder,
     The soul may know
     No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
     Nor sink the weight of mystery under,
     But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.

     And all we shrink from now may seem
     No new revealing;
     Familiar as our childhood's stream,
     Or pleasant memory of a dream
     The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing.

     Serene and mild the untried light
     May have its dawning;
     And, as in summer's northern night
     The evening and the dawn unite,
     The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning.

     I sit alone; in foam and spray
     Wave after wave
     Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray,
     Shoulder the broken tide away,
     Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.

     What heed I of the dusty land
     And noisy town?
     I see the mighty deep expand
     From its white line of glimmering sand
     To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!

     In listless quietude of mind,
     I yield to all
     The change of cloud and wave and wind
     And passive on the flood reclined,
     I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.

     But look, thou dreamer! wave and shore
     In shadow lie;
     The night-wind warns me back once more
     To where, my native hill-tops o'er,
     Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky.

     So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!
     I bear with me
     No token stone nor glittering shell,
     But long and oft shall Memory tell
     Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.

     1843.

     Bland as the morning breath of June
     The southwest breezes play;
     And, through its haze, the winter noon
     Seems warm as summer's day.
     The snow-plumed Angel of the North
     Has dropped his icy spear;
     Again the mossy earth looks forth,
     Again the streams gush clear.

     The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
     The muskrat leaves his nook,
     The bluebird in the meadow brakes
     Is singing with the brook.
     "Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cry
     Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
     "Our winter voices prophesy
     Of summer days to thee!"

     So, in those winters of the soul,
     By bitter blasts and drear
     O'erswept from Memory's frozen pole,
     Will sunny days appear.
     Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
     The soul its living powers,
     And how beneath the winter's snow
     Lie germs of summer flowers!

     The Night is mother of the Day,
     The Winter of the Spring,
     And ever upon old Decay
     The greenest mosses cling.
     Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
     Through showers the sunbeams fall;
     For God, who loveth all His works,
     Has left His hope with all!

     4th 1st month, 1847.

     The shadows round the inland sea
     Are deepening into night;
     Slow up the slopes of Ossipee
     They chase the lessening light.
     Tired of the long day's blinding heat,
     I rest my languid eye,
     Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet,
     Thy sunset waters lie!

     Along the sky, in wavy lines,
     O'er isle and reach and bay,
     Green-belted with eternal pines,
     The mountains stretch away.
     Below, the maple masses sleep
     Where shore with water blends,
     While midway on the tranquil deep
     The evening light descends.

     So seemed it when yon hill's red crown,
     Of old, the Indian trod,
     And, through the sunset air, looked down
     Upon the Smile of God.
     To him of light and shade the laws
     No forest skeptic taught;
     Their living and eternal Cause
     His truer instinct sought.

     He saw these mountains in the light
     Which now across them shines;
     This lake, in summer sunset bright,
     Walled round with sombering pines.
     God near him seemed; from earth and skies
     His loving voice he heard,
     As, face to face, in Paradise,
     Man stood before the Lord.

     Thanks, O our Father! that, like him,
     Thy tender love I see,
     In radiant hill and woodland dim,
     And tinted sunset sea.
     For not in mockery dost Thou fill
     Our earth with light and grace;
     Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will
     Behind Thy smiling face!

     1849.

     Gone hath the Spring, with all its flowers,
     And gone the Summer's pomp and show,
     And Autumn, in his leafless bowers,
     Is waiting for the Winter's snow.

     I said to Earth, so cold and gray,
     "An emblem of myself thou art."
     "Not so," the Earth did seem to say,
     "For Spring shall warm my frozen heart."
     I soothe my wintry sleep with dreams
     Of warmer sun and softer rain,
     And wait to hear the sound of streams
     And songs of merry birds again.

     But thou, from whom the Spring hath gone,
     For whom the flowers no longer blow,
     Who standest blighted and forlorn,
     Like Autumn waiting for the snow;

     No hope is thine of sunnier hours,
     Thy Winter shall no more depart;
     No Spring revive thy wasted flowers,
     Nor Summer warm thy frozen heart.

     1849.

     All day the darkness and the cold
     Upon my heart have lain,
     Like shadows on the winter sky,
     Like frost upon the pane;

     But now my torpid fancy wakes,
     And, on thy Eagle's plume,
     Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird,
     Or witch upon her broom!

     Below me roar the rocking pines,
     Before me spreads the lake
     Whose long and solemn-sounding waves
     Against the sunset break.

     I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh
     The grain he has not sown;
     I see, with flashing scythe of fire,
     The prairie harvest mown!

     I hear the far-off voyager's horn;
     I see the Yankee's trail,—
     His foot on every mountain-pass,
     On every stream his sail.

     By forest, lake, and waterfall,
     I see his pedler show;
     The mighty mingling with the mean,
     The lofty with the low.

     He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls,
     Upon his loaded wain;
     He's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks,
     With eager eyes of gain.

     I hear the mattock in the mine,
     The axe-stroke in the dell,
     The clamor from the Indian lodge,
     The Jesuit chapel bell!

     I see the swarthy trappers come
     From Mississippi's springs;
     And war-chiefs with their painted brows,
     And crests of eagle wings.

     Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe,
     The steamer smokes and raves;
     And city lots are staked for sale
     Above old Indian graves.

     I hear the tread of pioneers
     Of nations yet to be;
     The first low wash of waves, where soon
     Shall roll a human sea.

     The rudiments of empire here
     Are plastic yet and warm;
     The chaos of a mighty world
     Is rounding into form!

     Each rude and jostling fragment soon
     Its fitting place shall find,—
     The raw material of a State,
     Its muscle and its mind!

     And, westering still, the star which leads
     The New World in its train
     Has tipped with fire the icy spears
     Of many a mountain chain.

     The snowy cones of Oregon
     Are kindling on its way;
     And California's golden sands
     Gleam brighter in its ray!

     Then blessings on thy eagle quill,
     As, wandering far and wide,
     I thank thee for this twilight dream
     And Fancy's airy ride!

     Yet, welcomer than regal plumes,
     Which Western trappers find,
     Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance sown,
     Like feathers on the wind.

     Thy symbol be the mountain-bird,
     Whose glistening quill I hold;
     Thy home the ample air of hope,
     And memory's sunset gold!

     In thee, let joy with duty join,
     And strength unite with love,
     The eagle's pinions folding round
     The warm heart of the dove!

     So, when in darkness sleeps the vale
     Where still the blind bird clings
     The sunshine of the upper sky
     Shall glitter on thy wings!

     1849.

     "The spring comes slowly up this way."
                                Christabel.

     'T is the noon of the spring-time, yet never a bird
     In the wind-shaken elm or the maple is heard;
     For green meadow-grasses wide levels of snow,
     And blowing of drifts where the crocus should blow;
     Where wind-flower and violet, amber and white,
     On south-sloping brooksides should smile in the light,
     O'er the cold winter-beds of their late-waking roots
     The frosty flake eddies, the ice-crystal shoots;
     And, longing for light, under wind-driven heaps,
     Round the boles of the pine-wood the ground-laurel creeps,
     Unkissed of the sunshine, unbaptized of showers,
     With buds scarcely swelled, which should burst into flowers
     We wait for thy coming, sweet wind of the south!
     For the touch of thy light wings, the kiss of thy mouth;
     For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God,
     Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod!
     Up our long river-valley, for days, have not ceased
     The wail and the shriek of the bitter northeast,
     Raw and chill, as if winnowed through ices and snow,
     All the way from the land of the wild Esquimau,
     Until all our dreams of the land of the blest,
     Like that red hunter's, turn to the sunny southwest.
     O soul of the spring-time, its light and its breath,
     Bring warmth to this coldness, bring life to this death;
     Renew the great miracle; let us behold
     The stone from the mouth of the sepulchre rolled,
     And Nature, like Lazarus, rise, as of old!
     Let our faith, which in darkness and coldness has lain,
     Revive with the warmth and the brightness again,
     And in blooming of flower and budding of tree
     The symbols and types of our destiny see;
     The life of the spring-time, the life of the whole,
     And, as sun to the sleeping earth, love to the soul!

     1852.