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AND in the frosty season, when the sun | |
| Was set, and visible for many a mile | |
| The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, | |
| I heeded not their summons: happy time | |
| It was indeed for all of us,—for me | 5 |
| It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud | |
| The village clock tolled six,—I wheeled about, | |
| Proud and exulting like an untired horse | |
| That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, | |
| We hissed along the polished ice in games | 10 |
| Confederate, imitative of the chase | |
| And woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn, | |
| The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. | |
| So through the darkness and the cold we flew, | |
| And not a voice was idle; with the din | 15 |
| Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; | |
| The leafless trees and every icy crag | |
| Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills | |
| Into the tumult sent an alien sound | |
| Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars | 20 |
| Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west | |
| The orange sky of evening died away. | |
| Not seldom from the uproar I retired | |
| Into a silent bay, or sportively | |
| Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, | 25 |
| To cut across the reflex of a star | |
| That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed | |
| Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, | |
| When we had given our bodies to the wind, | |
| And all the shadowy banks on either side | 30 |
| Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still | |
| The rapid line of motion, then at once | |
| Have I, reclining back upon my heels, | |
| Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs | |
| Wheeled by me,—even as if the earth had rolled | 35 |
| With visible motion her diurnal round! | |
| Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, | |
| Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched | |
| Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep. | |
| |
| Ye presences of nature in the sky | 40 |
| And on the earth! Ye visions of the hills, | |
| And souls of lonely places! can I think | |
| A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed | |
| Such ministry, when ye through many a year | |
| Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, | 45 |
| On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, | |
| Impressed upon all forms the characters | |
| Of danger or desire; and thus did make | |
| The surface of the universal earth | |
| With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, | 50 |
| Work like a sea? | |
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