’T IS the morning, and the sun with ruddy orb | |
| Ascending fires the horizon; while the clouds, | |
| That crowd away before the driving wind, | |
| More ardent as the disc emerges more, | |
| Resembles most some city in a blaze, | 5 |
| Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray | |
| Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale, | |
| And, tingeing all with his own rosy hue, | |
| From every herb and every spiry blade | |
| Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field. * * * * * | 10 |
| The verdure of the plain lies buried deep | |
| Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents, | |
| And coarser grass, upspearing o’er the rest, | |
| Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine | |
| Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, | 15 |
| And, fledged with icy feathers, nod superb. | |
| The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence | |
| Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep | |
| In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait | |
| Their wonted fodder; not, like hungering man, | 20 |
| Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek, | |
| And patient of the slow-paced swain’s delay. * * * * * | |
| Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcerned | |
| The cheerful haunts of men,—to wield the axe | |
| And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear, | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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. * * * * * | |
| Now from the roost, or from the neighboring pale, | |
| Where, diligent to catch the first faint gleam | 35 |
| Of smiling day, they gossiped side by side, | |
| Come trooping at the housewife’s well-known call | |
| The feathered tribes domestic. Half on wing, | |
| And half on foot, they brush the fleecy flood, | |
| Conscious and fearful of too deep a plunge. | 40 |
| The sparrows peep, and quit the sheltering eaves | |
| To seize the fair occasion. Well they eye | |
| The scattered grain, and, thievishly resolved | |
| To escape the impending famine, often scared | |
| As oft return, a pert voracious kind. | 45 |
| Clean riddance quickly made, one only care | |
| Remains to each, the search of sunny nook, | |
| Or shed impervious to the blast. Resigned | |
| To sad necessity, the cock foregoes | |
| His wonted strut, and, wading at their head | 50 |
| With well-considered steps, seems to resent | |
| His altered gait and stateliness retrenched. | |
| How find the myriads, that in summer cheer | |
| The hills and valleys with their ceaseless songs, | |
| Due sustenance, or where subsist they now? | 55 |
| Earth yields them naught; the imprisoned worm is safe | |
| Beneath the frozen clod; all seeds of herbs | |
| Lie covered close; and berry-bearing thorns, | |
| That feed the thrush (whatever some suppose), | |
| Afford the smaller minstrels no supply. | 60 |
| The long protracted vigor of the year | |
| Thins all their numerous flocks. In chinks and holes | |
| Ten thousand seek an unmolested end, | |
| As instinct prompts; self-buried ere they die. | |
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