To Winter

No longer Beauty's many-colour'd robe
Adorns the autumnal scene; no longer play
The Zephyrs with her tresses; she has fled
To happier regions, and has left the year
Naked and void of charms; the leafless woods
Tremble no more with rapture at the voice
Of harmony: ah! how is Nature changed!
Silent, and sad, she anxiously awaits
Thy coming, mighty King! and, as the sun
Less bright, less ardent, more and more declines
Towards the horizon, with alarm she marks
Thy shadow lengthening in the nightly shade
And towering o'er her, prostrate as she lies,
More threatening, more gigantic; till, at length,
Boreas, thy harbinger, forth-rushing fierce,
Tears from chill'd Autumn's head the withering Crown,
And blustering loud in her affrighted ear,
O Winter! tells thy terrible approach.

Behold! in awful majesty thou comest!
On huge, black clouds, that through the encumber'd sky,
Before the northern blast, sail slowly on,
Thou ridest sublime; aloft in ether towers
Thy giant form; thy formidable frown
Blackens the night; thy threatening voice, sent forth
Upon the impetuous winds, affrights the world.
Yet dare I welcome thee, terrific Power!
Dread Winter, hail! thy terrors fill my soul
With a delightful awe; I love to trace
Thy varying scenes, the wonders of thy reign.
Thy Ministers await thy sovereign will,
And, in the secret regions of the air,
In cloudy magazines prepare thy stores
Of snow, and rain, and hail. At thy command
Frost, that invisible, mysterious Power,
Breathes upon Nature, and thou see'st her soon
An unresisting captive, bound in ice;
Vainly she mourns, till, at thy bidding, Thaw
With his damp, misty standard, from the south
Comes creeping silently, and sets her free;
She weeps for joy. Ah! now thou dost unchain
The Demon of the tempest, to exert
On tortured Nature thy tyrannic might;
Fierce on the whirlwind's wing he rushes forth
With dreadful bellowings, hurling all around
Destructive deluges of rain, snow, hail,
In wildest discord, and chaotic war
Mingling earth, sea, and sky. All-potent Lord!
Dread Winter! though Sublimity appears
Thy chief attendant, and partakes thy throne;
Yet Beauty often visits thee, and dares,
In many a scene, with the more powerful charms
Of her majestic sister to combine
Her pleasing graces: I delight to view
Thy snowy robe of purest, glowing white,
The clear, blue skies, the cheerful evergreen
Amid the wintry desert, from whose boughs
The little redbreast chirps; the trees and herbs
With snow and hoarfrost fringed, to fancy's eye
Presenting pictured shapes, and, when the sun
Sheds o'er them his effulgence, sparkling keen
With million living particles of light.

But with far nobler transport I survey
Thy nightly scene, O Winter! when by frost
Refined and clear'd, the pure transpicuous air
Through her thin, azure veil, to wondering man
Displays the unclouded heavens, myriads of stars
Shining in all their glory: at the view
Rapt Contemplation, in her car of light,
Expatiates in the interminable space,
Ranging from world to world, from sun to sun,
O'erwhelm'd with wonder and astonishment,
And sacred awe, till lifting up her eyes,
She sees Religion, from the opening gate
Of heaven itself, on her seraphic wings
Smiling descend; she feels her power divine,
And raptured hymns the great Creator's praise.