University of Virginia Library

High time I should wield the sceptre,
High time I should play a part
In the Drama of the Year!
Timid Spring (although I kept her
Prison'd long) by power of heart
Burst her fetters, and with rapture
Freedom shouted, far and near!
Of the Queenly sisterhood,
Her alone I held in thrall,
And in my rude fashion woo'd—
Woo'd, as the old Sea Kings woo'd—
Of my riches prodigal—
Prodigal of oath and bluster,
And of jewels that in lustre
Rivall'd those of real cost,
Worked up by the hand of Frost.
For her shapely limbs infantile
I devised an ermine mantle;
In its glossy foldings wrapp'd her,
To the throat with fleeces happ'd her;
And my choicest artisans
Brought the triumphs of their skill—
Streaming wimples, waving fans,
Wrought behind a Lapland hill,
In some dragon-watch'd recess
By the busy sorceress,
Known through Scandinavian valleys
As Aurora Borealis.
I, her guardian, for a while
Fondled her in such rude fashion,
Sought my fair ward to beguile,
Proffer'd her my senile passion,
Only to interpret scorn
Out of her responsive smile,
And to shake my head forlorn!
Ay! when March had nigh run down,
I read rebel in her eyes;
But the terror of my frown
Had evanished with my spells;
Rattling down came icicles,
Slid the snow-drifts off the heights,
Captive Spring assum'd her rights,
And I, powerless, dropp'd my crown!

Face to face we never met,
I and rival Summer, yet
My cold cheek is made to burn,
Oftimes, with her jealous breath,
And I smite her in return.
Winter's Life is Summer's Death!
Truly, there is no love lost
Betwixt us: still we work as one;
Mutual purposes are cross'd
Only to insure the doing
Of the work that must be done.
All away from servile wooing
Is my action with the Summer,
'Tis a battle without ending—
A great, measureless contending—
Each in turn the Overcomer!

Autumn, too, makes cause of quarrel,
That with her I hold no parle,
Deeming me a crusty carle!
When the stain is on the laurel
And the mildew on the bay,
Rests it, even with lips of coral,
The ill signs to kiss away?
Less, with languid breath, like hers,
Or the warmth of minnivers
Heaped upon a dying Queen,
To restore their wonted green.

Of all things effeminate,
True! I make earth desolate!
The companions of the Rose
Tremble when I come. In vain
The battle with my chills and snows—
The striving with the hurricane!
Yet in mercy, more than wrath,
I trample them below my feet.
The deadliest poisons are the sweet,
And the adder's choice retreat
Lurketh in the flowery path.

With the wrecks of garden-beauty,
In the earnestness of duty
I deal ruthlessly. They ask
No quarter, and have lost desire:
Yet less ruthless than the Fire
Are the hands I set to task;
And she slanders me, who says,
Drawing from a fancy fertile,
That I persecute the myrtle,—
Slay the laurel,—scourge the bays.
It is I who nurse them, rather,
Freshen up their sickly hues—
Dissipate the rusts that gather,
Counteract the evil dews.
Without Me, how the Year would fare!
How wearily would life creep on,
In one unvaried monotone,
How slumberous the very air!
How stagnate river, lake, and sea;
No wind, no wave, no energy
Of sound or action; no true psalm
Of Nature breaking through the calm,
But the pent gasping which pertains
To dungeons and their festering chains,
To the lazar-house and tomb,
To recondite catacomb,
To the pestilential fen
And the throat of dragon's den!

In the Black land, watchers grimy
Greet my coming to defy me;
In the kingdom under ground,
Where, with jetty diamonds crown'd,
And attired in glossy sables,
Sits the Fire King, Ancient Coal!
On a daïs of control,
Heading the convivial tables
Where his thousands of tried miners,
Frugal in their fare, as diners,
Wax uproarious round the bowl.

Hand of friendship I would stretch,
Ay! and do, oft and again,
To this comrade of my reign:
But my fingers all relax
In his grasp, like melting wax,
And I feel it were unwise
Dignity to compromise;
So, I leave your shivering wretch
To his mercies, and proclaim
Dissolved the League of Frost and Flame.

'Tis His duty to unfreeze,
Mine to vex the bed of ease;
His to foster and to cherish,
Mine to wither and enchain!
From the graves of those who perish
In my desolating reign,
Three-fold life will spring again.
Ruler stern of the unruly!
Swarthy comrade! answer truly,
Out of thy seductive heart
Canst thou multiply the strong?
Will thy kindlings at the feet
Of the oak insure from wrong?
Art thou slower to devour,
On thy day of breaking forth,
Judg'd of when the wind is north,
In an eligible hour,
When thou play'st the nursing mother
Indoors to both babe and flower,
And the check is on thy power
To inflame, consume, and smother?
I am terrible, 'tis true,
Thou, who liv'st the whole year through
In hypocrisy of heart,
More terrible and cruel art!

Yet, in one week of the Year,
In the merry Christmas time,
When from belfries far and near,
From Cathedral towers sublime,
From the spires of village churches,
Flows the soul of Inter-chime—
In the week memorialized
Of His Advent, who by purchase,
And the Body sacrificed,
Reinstated in God's grace
The fallen of the human race;—
When the Mistletoe suspended
Deftly from the festive ceiling—
Mystic leaf with berry blended—
Gives invite to chaste saluting;
And the treasured stores of feeling
Make up in their breaking out
For long terms of double dealing—
Charities their hands forth-putting,
With a self-applauding shout!

In the reign of Pantomime,
When the strutter on the stage,
Charged throat-high with florid rhyme,
Personates a mythic age—
Brings to play the Jack and Giant,
Ogre, faery, gnome, and dragon—
Matchless drainers of the flagon—
Ravishers, and knights defiant—
Ladye loves of all degrees,
From the Princess to the Peasant,
Making of the Past a Present;
By the help of magic keys
Throwing wide the wondrous gates
Of invisible estates
In the world of Fantasies:—
In that festival of truce
I find blustering of no use.
Should I summon my war hosts
Into play to rave and threat,
With his wondrous amulet
Among rosy sapphires set,
He, the unscar'd, scares my ghosts,
All the dismaler their howl,
All the merrier the laugh
Indoors, and the streaming bowl
Rimm'd with Motto “Fill and Quaff,”
Faster circles with the pace
Of my whirling Spectre-race.

'Tis in vain the siege I press—
Cast in vain for port of sally
And my scatter'd forces rally,
The old Fire King, ne'ertheless,
Holds his own, by rug and hearth—
Meets my menaces with laughter—
Drowns my agonies in mirth,
And I pelt both roof and rafter—
Storm the casement and the gable—
Yell the chimney throats adown—
Simulate the roar of Babel
Round the curtains of the Town;—
All in vain! Yet times there are
When Grace betwixt us twain is cast
Aside, and Mercy veils her Star,
And all God's Angels stand aghast;
For the fierce Soul of devilry
Is out at large, and Storm and Fire
Are knit for ruthless revelry,
Hung'ring to do the Fiend's desire.
Pity the ship and all its crew,
Be it a British Admiral,
And they who man it the true blue,
Which, on that night of Festival,
Crosses our pathway! Rather meet
The Vanguard of a rival Fleet
With triple force of turret power
Equipped and eager to destroy,
Than the fierce Rovers of the hour
Sworn to exhaust their cruel joy
In one great onset which shall yield
No traces of the Battle-field!

My bugler with his glittering horn
Is on the hills at break of morn—
At break of morn, while yet the West
Shews paling stars. The Lake is paved
With floor of glass—the rills enslaved—
Their silvery fountains in arrest.
Enamell'd are the meads deflower'd
With sapphires, and the slopes above
With clustering diamonds are dowered.
My jeweller Frost such gifts of love
Bestows; and who with loom or shuttle,
Or facet-saw and cunning tool,
Can imitate an art so subtle—
So subtle and so wonderful?

Upon the Lake, the roaring game
All yesterday, to dip of sun,
Was played, and boisterous the fun—
The bandied jest, the loud acclaim—
The cheering and the helping on,
With spur of voice and twirl of broom,
Towards its goal the laggard stone.

O curler! in your honest heart,
For much of nobler strife lies room—
For much that shews the better part—
For much of patriotic zeal—
For much of that true charity
Which casteth for the general weal!
I joy in your hilarity,
And gild the rigors of my reign
With free concessions—sympathies
Aloof from those to grief and pain
The due. In freezing, I unfreeze;
In chaining, silently unchain.

Enough! I am to Duty pressed;
My bugler slowly climbs the hill;
A dark cloud hovers in the West,
But darker passions stir my breast,
And goading then an Iron Will.
With flourish from his glittering horn
He ravisheth the ear of morn,
The prelude to a louder strain!
Not always I assert my reign
By hurricane or noisy rage—
Not always the wild winds uncage
At once, in sudden petulance;
But dally often, as the scene
From calm to storm I shift, and pause,
That man may learn how Nature's laws
Work for his good, and things terrene
Teach wisdom on the true incline,
Which, step by step, and line on line,
Leads upward to the Primal Cause.

Another blast my bugler blows,
But not with stinted breath,
Fearful to break the graves' repose,
Or stir the feud with Death.
Out ring the measures of his horn—
Clear as the eagle's cry at morn—
Loud as the summons to the charge
Which sets the long-enslaved at large.
Its wings, the dark cloud in the West
Extends, obedient to the call,
And manifests on every crest
The spreading of the sable pall.

Another, and a fiercer blast!
And from the uplands overcast,
And from the valleys and the glens,
And from the bowels of the fens,
And from the hidings of the cave,
And from the toilers on the wave,
And from the forest-heart retired,
A chorus, as of throats inspired,
Rolls forth in emulous reply,
And on its tide of sound retreat,
As if with tramp of equine feet,
The legions of the under-sky.
Squadron on squadron disappears,
And in its stead the luminous spears
Of a new legion meet the eye.
On every eminence and front
Of vantage, the supplanting host
Shews of a sudden; on the flanks
Of the great hills, and by the streams
That lave them, lo! stand serried ranks!

One Salvo more! its echoes fall
Smothered upon the listening ear,
Or only rise at interval
In token how the far and near
Are welded by the spell of sound,
And how a secret agency
Is aye at work, above, around,
And in God's forges under ground.

Out of the North, a Battle cry!
A yearning from the flow'ry South!
Which the true voice of Liberty?—
The shout from the defier's mouth,
Or the strong sobbing to be free
That by its restless energy
Looseneth the bonds of Tyranny?

I wave the Sceptre, and my hosts
Surge and resurge, deploy and wheel—
Show front of animated steel
A moment in the sun's brief glance,
And in the next a cloud of ghosts,
Bereft alike of helm and lance,
With howlings leads the grand advance.

When, and on what devoted head,
Shall I wreak vengeance? for my blood,
Long frozen and allied with the dead,
Boils and is eager as the flood
Which clouds and melting winds have moved
To overtake the bounds approved.