THE BEAUTIES OF WINTER. Thou 'rt gone-th' abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form: yet, on my heart, He, who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, THE BEAUTIES OF WINTER. THOU hast thy beauties: sterner ones I own, Thou art austere thy studded mantle, gay As erst Golconda's; and thy pure array Of regal ermine, when the drifted snow Envelopes Nature; till her features seem F 33 AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY. THE day is ending, The marsh is frozen, The river dead. Through clouds like ashes, The red sun flashes, On village windows, That glimmer red. The snow recommences; The buried fences Mark no longer The road o'er the plain; While through the meadows, Like fearful shadows, Slowly passes, A funeral train. The bell is pealing, Within me responds To the dismal knell. Shadows are trailing, And tolling within, Like a funeral bell. THE PLOUGHMAN. 35 THE PLOUGHMAN. "Doth the ploughman plough all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rye in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him."-Isaiah xxviii. 24-26. AND see where surly Winter passes off, The mountains lift their green heads to the sky. As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, And sing their wild notes to the listening waste. Forth fly the tepid airs; and unconfined, Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays. Joyous, th' impatient husbandman perceives Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers Drives from their stalls, to where the well-used plough Lies in the furrow, loosened from the frost. There, unrefusing, to the harnessed yoke They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil, Into the faithful bosom of the ground: The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene. Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious man THE PLOUGHMAN. Think these lost themes unworthy of your ear: And some, with whom compared your insect tribes Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm Disdaining little delicacies, seized The plough, and greatly independent lived. 377 |