eas, which the white
bear wanders o'er,--
Where the fisherman's sail is stiff with ice, and the luckless
forms below
In the sunless cold of the lingering night into marble statues
grow!

He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--on the
rushing Northern blast,
And the dark Norwegian pines have bowed as his fearful
breath went past.
With an unscorched wing he has hurried on, where the fires
of Hecla glow
On the darkly beautiful sky above and the ancient ice below.

He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--and
the quiet lake shall feel
The torpid touch of his glazing breath, and ring to the
skater's heel;
And the streams which danced on the broken rocks, or sang
to the leaning grass,
Shall bow again to their winter chain, and in mournful
silence pass.

He comes,--he comes,--the Frost Spirit comes!--let us
meet him as we may,
And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil
power away;
And gather closer the circle round, when that fire-light
dances high,
And laugh at the shriek of the baffled Fiend as his sounding
wing goes by!

SONGS OF LABOR

DEDICATION

I would the gift I offer here
Might graces from thy favor take,
And, seen through Friendship's atmosphere,
On softened lines and coloring, wear
The unaccustomed light of beauty, for thy sake.

Few leaves of Fancy's spring remain
But what I have I give to thee,--
The o'er-sunned bloom of summer's plain,
And paler flowers, the latter rain
Calls from the weltering slope of life's autumnal

Above the fallen groves of green,
Where youth's enchanted forest stood,
Dry root and mossed trunk between,
A sober after-growth is seen,
As springs the pine where falls the gay-leafed maple wood!

Yet birds will sing, and breezes play
Their leaf-harps in the sombre tree,
And through the bleak and wintry day
It keeps its steady green alway,--
So, even my after-thoughts may have a charm for thee.

Art's perfect forms no moral need,
And beaut