The gusts of wind that frisk about,
 With the winter sprites at play,
 And pile them high like football fiends,
 In a most fantastic way,
 Are stragglers from the woodland dell,
 Just assuming to be fay.
The birds cheer with chirps, squirrels with chats,
 A clouded lining of sun-beam slats,
 Curtains Sol of cunning eye;
 Crows “Caw! caw!” as tho at play,
 A golden bomb bursts the glow’ring sky,
 And frightens the elfins away.

A BIT O’ CHEER

Such scurrying of blow and bluster out,
 Instilled a longing just to look about
 For one stray emblem of returning spring,
 Some form of life aquiver on the wing.
A massive mound of snow towered mountain high.
 The nude trees, all ashiver stood opprest;
 One brave bough saluted the whistling wind,
 That had cruelly bared her aching breast.
The tiny twigs twisted and twined for warmth,
 Still striving in vain for reviving breath,
 While the icy palm with a ruthless calm,
 Soon smote many a sickly one with death.
Ah, me! Is that a vision which I see!
 Are those real, rosy apples on that tree?
 Or is it God’s own gleaming sun streams thru—
 A crimson hue, on them for me and you?
Or must I deem it destiny of war—
 Bloody war, never known on earth before
 Stains them gore; or reflected words of cheer
 From afar, to home friends who writhe in fear.
’Tis Nature’s pretty prank our hearts have blest,
 Yet simple truth should always be confest;
 The flaunting fruit which flings high in that tree,
 Are merry, dancing, dangling apples three.

THOT

Thot is the skiff that bears the soul,
 To Heaven’s celestial shore,
 With our God as the stanch pilot,
 To guide the light craft o’er.
’Tis thot which makes the poor man rich,
 That makes the rich man poor,
 Lord! may each treasury of thot,
 Be thy Word firm and sure.
No Scylla lifts six hungry heads,
 No Sirens’ song is heard,
 No Charybdis engulfs the soul,
 With thot driven by God’s Word.
Let Triton blow his shameful blast,
 Unfurl your sails—nor care!
 With Christ to man your vessel frail,
 Foul weather will prove fair.
Tho Neptune seethe, Christ soothes the waves,
 While low-hung cloudlets pout,
 Some peevish, purse their beating brows,
 Soon all are put to rout.
Thot speeds along the bounding brine,
 While mingled mists of care,
 Take their flight on the rifting clouds,
 When Soul breathes freer air.
The skiff of thot, a soul its crew,
 Now welcomes her haven fair;
 She anchors in God’s Elysium,
 Our Heaven, of laurels rare.