THE WOODMAN.

The fowls of heaven,

Tamed by the cruel season, crowd around
The winnowing store, and claim the little boon
Which Providence assigns them. One alone,
The redbreast, sacred to the household gods,
Wisely regardful of th' embroiling sky,
In joyless fields and thorny thickets, leaves
His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man
His annual visit. Half-afraid, he first

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Against the window beats; then, brisk, alights On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance,

And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is: Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs

Attract his slender feet.

THOMSON.

THE WOODMAN.

FORTH goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned.
The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe
And drive the wedge, in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd; with pointed ears,

And tail cropped short, half lurcher and half cur,

His dog attends him. Close behind his heel

Now creeps he slow;

and now,

with many a frisk,

Wide scampering, snatches up the drifted snow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;
Then shakes his powdered coat, and barks for joy.
Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl
Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught,
But now and then with pressure of his thumb
To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube.
That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.

COWPER.

(A WINTER WALK.

WHEN winter winds are piercing chill,

And through the hawthorn blows the gale,

With solemn feet I tread the hill,

That overbrows the lonely vale.

O'er the bare upland, and away

Through the long reach of desert woods,

The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.

A WINTER WALK.

Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,

And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.)

Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs

Pour out the river's gradual tide,

Shrilly the skater's iron rings,

And voices fill the woodland side.)

Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day.

But still wild music is abroad,

Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.

Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;

I hear it in the opening year,

I listen, and it cheers me long.

LONGFELLOW.

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WINTER'S FROST.

AN icy gale, oft shifting o'er the pool,
Breathes a blue film, and in its mid career
Arrests the bickering storm.

Loud rings the frozen earth, and hard reflects
A double noise; while, at his evening watch,
The village dog deters the nightly thief;
The heifer lows; the distant waterfall

Swells in the breeze; and with the hasty tread
Of traveller, the hollow-sounding plain
Shakes from afar

It freezes on,

Till Morn, late rising o'er the drooping world,
Lifts her pale eye, unjoyous. Then appears
The various labor of the silent Night;

Prone from the dripping eave, and dumb cascade,
Whose idle torrents only seem to roar;

The pendent icicle, the frost-work fair,
Where transient hues and fancied figures rise;
Wide-spouted o'er the hill, the frozen brook,
A livid tract, cold gleaming on the morn.

THOMSON.

THE SNOW-CLOGGED WAIN.

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WINTER TRIUMPHANT.

THE dead leaves strew the forest-walk,
And withered are the pale wild flowers;
The frost hangs blackening on the stalk,
The dew-drops fall in frozen showers,

Gone are the Spring's green sprouting bowers, Gone Summer's rich and mantling vines,

And Autumn with her yellow hours On hill and plain no longer shines.

BRAINARD.

THE SNOW-CLOGGED WAIN.

ILL fares the traveller now, and he that stalks

In ponderous boots beside his reeking team.
The wain goes heavily, impeded sore

By congregated loads adhering close

To the clogged wheels; and in its sluggish pace
Noiseless appears a moving hill of snow.

The toiling steeds expand the nostril wide,
While every breath, by respiration strong
Forced downward, is consolidated soon

Upon their jutting chests. He, formed to bear