s with fire;
A wind of frost that gives no rest
To such lean leaves as haunt the brier,
And hide the cricket's vibrant wire.

Sear, shivering shocks, and stubble blurred
With bramble-blots of dull maroon;
And creekless hills whereon no herd
Finds pasture, and whereo'er the loon
Flies, haggard as the rainless moon.

MID-WINTER

All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold;
And through the snow the muffled waters fell;
The day seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell,
Like some old hermit whose last bead is told.
At eve the wind woke, and the snow-clouds rolled
Aside to leave the fierce sky visible;
Harsh as an iron landscape of wan hell
The dark hills hung framed in with gloomy gold.
And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one at
My window wailing: now a little child
Crying outside the door; and now the long
Howl of some starved beast down the flue. I sat
And knew 'twas Winter with his madman song
Of miseries, whereon he stared and smiled.

COLD

A mist that froze beneath the moon and shook
Minutest frosty fire in the air.
All night the wind was still as lonely Care
Who sighs before her shivering ingle-nook.
The face of Winter wore a crueler look
Than when he shakes the icicles from his hair,
And, in the boisterous pauses, lets his stare
Freeze through the forest, fettering bough and brook.
He is the despot now who sits and dreams
Of Desolation and Despair, and smiles
At Poverty, who hath no place to rest,
Who wanders o'er Life's snow-made pathless miles,
And sees the Home-of-Comfort's window gleams,
And hugs her rag-wrapped baby to her breast.

IN WINTER

I.

When black frosts pluck the acorns down,
And in the lane the waters freeze;
And 'thwart red skies the wild-fowl flies,
And death sits grimly 'mid the trees;
When home-lights glitter in the brown
Of dusk like shaggy eyes,--
Before the door his feet, sweetheart,
And two white arms that greet, sweetheart,
And two white arms that greet.

II.

When ways are drifted with the leaves,
And winds make music in the thorns;
And lone and lost above the frost
The new moon shows its silver horns;
When underneath the lamp-lit eaves
The opened door is crossed,--
A happy heart and light, sweetheart,
And lips to kiss good-night, sweetheart,
And lips to kiss good-night.

ON THE FARM

I.

He sang a song as he sowed the field,
Sowed the field at break of day:
"When the pursed-u