1.
The cold earth slept below,
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around, with a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow,
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.

2.
The wintry hedge was black,
The green grass was not seen,
The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.

3.
Thine eyes glowed in the glare
Of the moon's dying light;
As a fen-fire's beam on a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,
That shook in the wind of night.

4.
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved -
The wind made thy bosom chill -<...

I

Within the mind strong fancies work.
A deep delight the bosom thrills
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills:
Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind,
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handywork to mock
By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be razed
On which four thousand years have gazed!

II

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-wh...

O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist
And the black elm tops 'mong the freezing stars,
To thee the spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou, whose only book has been the light
Of supreme darkness which thou feddest on
Night after night when Phoebus was away,
To thee the Spring shall be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge, I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge, I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he's awake who thinks himself asleep.

The town, the churchyard, and the setting sun,
The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,
Though beautiful, cold, strange, as in a dream
I dreamed long ago, now new begun.
The short-liv'd, paly summer is but won
From winter's ague for one hour's gleam;
Through sapphire warm their stars do never beam:
All is cold Beauty; pain is never done.
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The real of Beauty, free from that dead hue
Sickly imagination and sick pride
Cast wan upon it? Burns! with honour due
I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow, hide
Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.

The setting Sun withdraws his yellow light,
A gloomy staining shadows over all,
While the brown beetle, trumpeter of Night,
Proclaims his entrance with a droning call.
How pleasant now, where slanting hazels fall
Thick, o'er the woodland stile, to muse and lean;
To pluck a woodbine from the shade withal,
And take short snatches o'er the moisten'd scene;
While deep and deeper shadows intervene,
And leave fond Fancy moulding to her will
The cots, and groves, and trees so dimly seen,
That die away more undiscerned still;
Bringing a sooty curtain o'er the sight,
And calmness in the bosom still as night.

The prospect is bare and white,
    And the air is crisp and chill;
While the ebon wings of night
    Are spread on the distant hill.

The roar of the stormy sea
    Seem the dirges shrill and sharp
That winter plays on the tree -
    His wild Æolian harp.

In the pool that darkly creeps
    In ripples before the gale,
A star like a lily sleeps
    And wiggles its silver tail.

                    R. K. Munkittrick.

O crimson-tined flowers
    That live when others die,
What thoughtless hand unloving
    Could ever pass you by?

You are the last bright blossoms,
    The summer's after-glow,
When all her early children
    Have faded long ago.

Sweet golden-rod and xenia
    And crimson marigold,
What dreams of autumn splendor
    Your velvet leaves unfold.

Long, long ago the violets
    Have closed their sweet blue eyes,
And lain with pale, dead faces
    Beneath the summer skies.

And on their graves you blossom
    With leaves of gold and red,
And yet--how soon forever
    Your beauty will be fled.

The frost will come to kill you
    The snows will wrap you round;
And you will sleep forgotten
    Upon the fro...

What will ye, my poor orphans, do,
When I must leave the world and you;
Who'll give ye then a sheltering shed,
Or credit ye, when I am dead?
Who'll let ye by their fire sit,
Although ye have a stock of wit,
Already coin'd to pay for it?
I cannot tell: unless there be
Some race of old humanity
Left, of the large heart and long hand,
Alive, as noble Westmorland;
Or gallant Newark; which brave two
May fost'ring fathers be to you.
If not, expect to be no less
Ill used, than babes left fatherless.

Out of the bosom of the Air,
    Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
    Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
    Silent, and soft, and slow
    Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
    Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
    In the white countenance confession,
    The troubled sky reveals
    The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
    Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
    Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
    Now whispered and revealed
    To wood and field.

    I have jest about decided
        It 'ud keep a town-boy hoppin'
        Fer to work all winter, choppin'
    Fer a' old fire-place, like I did!
    Lawz! them old times wuz contrairy! -
        Blame backbone o' winter, 'peared-like,
        Wouldn't break! - and I wuz skeerd-like
    Clean on into Febuary!
        Nothin' ever made we madder
    Than fer Pap to stomp in, layin'
    On a' extra fore-stick, sayin'
        "Groun'hog's out and seed his shadder!"

Before she has her floor swept
    Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
    A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
    Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
    Till past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
    With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
    By the light of the moon,

She walks up the walk
    Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
    And pays you back cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
    And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
    And the Queen Anne's lace!

    Thou whom chance may hither lead,
    Be thou clad in russet weed,
    Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
    Grave these counsels on thy soul.

    Life is but a day at most,
    Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
    Hope not sunshine ev'ry hour.
    Fear not clouds will always lour.
    As Youth and Love with sprightly dance
    Beneath thy morning star advance,
    Pleasure with her siren air
    May delude the thoughtless pair:
    Let Prudence bless enjoyment's cup,
    Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up.

    As thy day grows warm and high,
    Life's meridian flaming nigh,
    Dost thou spurn the humble vale?
    Life's proud summits would'st thou scale?
    Check thy climbing step, elate,
    Evils lurk in felon wait:
  ...

They heard the South wind sighing
    A murmur of the rain;
And they knew that Earth was longing
    To see them all again.

While the snow-drops still were sleeping
    Beneath the silent sod;
They felt their new life pulsing
    Within the dark, cold clod.

Not a daffodil nor daisy
    Had dared to raise its head;
Not a fairhaired dandelion
    Peeped timid from its bed;


Though a tremor of the winter
    Did shivering through them run;
Yet they lifted up their foreheads
    To greet the vernal sun.

And the sunbeams gave them welcome.
    As did the morning air
And scattered o'er their simple robes
    Rich tints of beauty rare.

Soon a host of lovely flowers
    From vales and woodland burst;
But...

The day opens with the brown light of snowfall
And past the window snowflakes fall and fall.
I sit in my chair all day and work and work
Measuring words against each other.
I open the piano and play a tune
But find it does not say what I feel,
I grow tired of measuring words against each other,
I grow tired of these four walls,
And I think of you, who write me that you have just had a daughter
And named her after your first sweetheart,
And you, who break your heart, far away,
In the confusion and savagery of a long war,
And you who, worn by the bitterness of winter,
Will soon go south.
The snowflakes fall almost straight in the brown light
Past my window,
And a sparrow finds refuge on my window-ledge.
This alone comes to me out of the world outside
A...

    Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd,
    And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
    O thou my elder brother in misfortune,
    By far my elder brother in the muses,
    With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!
    Why is the bard unpitied by the world,
    Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?

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.

The Cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The ploughboy is whooping, anon, anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!