WINTER.

Majestic King of storms! around

Thy wan and hoary brow

A spotless diadem is bound

Of everlasting snow:

Time, which dissolves all earthly things,

O'er thee hath vainly waved his wings!

The sun, with his refulgent beams,

Thaws not thy icy zone;

Lord of ten thousand frozen streams,

That sleep around thy throne,

Whose crystal barriers may defy

The genial warmth of summer's sky.

What human foot shall dare intrude

Beyond the howling waste,

Or view the untrodden solitude,

Where thy dark home is placed;

In those far realms of death where light

Shrieks from thy glance and all is night?

The earth has felt thine iron tread,

The streams have ceased to flow,

The leaves beneath thy feet lie dead,

And keen the north winds blow:

Nature lies in her winding sheet

Of dazzling snow, and blinding sleet.

Thy voice has chained the troubled deep;

Within thy mighty hand,

The restless world of waters sleep

On Greenland's barren strand.

Thy stormy heralds, loud and shrill,

Have bid the foaming waves lie still.

Where lately many a gallant prow

Spurned back the whitening spray,

An icy desert glitters now,

Beneath the moon's wan ray:

Full many a fathom deep below

The dark imprisoned waters flow.

How gloriously above thee gleam

The planetary train,

And the pale moon with clearer beam

Chequers the frost-bound plain;

The sparkling diadem of night

Circles thy brow with tenfold light.

I love thee not — yet when I raise

To heaven my wondering eyes,

I feel transported at the blaze

Of beauty in the skies,

And laud the power that, e'en to thee,

Hath given such pomp and majesty!

I turn and shrink before the blast

That sweeps the leafless tree,

Careering on the tempest past,

Thy snowy wreath I see;

But Spring will come in beauty forth

And chase thee to the frozen north!