 | Ballads of the North and Other Poems |  |
WINTER.
O fly for shelter, for the storm is near,
The evil days are come, the wintry foe;
Nothing avails us now, but such life-glow
As we have gleaned and gathered through the year.
O cruel Winter, with thy frowning face,
From thee there is no hope, no gift, no grace;
Already saved and sure our home must be,
Or now we perish, outcast, utterly.
But where, on all the desolate blasted plain,
Rises the refuge that our steps should gain?
Where is the guarded flame, the heaped hearthstone,
Which patient toil and thought have made our own,
Beneath the roof where winter winds howl past,
Yet cannot shake its doors and windows fast?
Alas, no work of hands, no warmth of heart
Have fenced for us the harbouring rest apart:
The frozen bed of earth, the snowy pall,
The last, the only birthright left of all.
Yet this world's utter loss is not the end:
Now, open, Heaven, and to our need descend!
O children of the air, fair hopes and dreams,
Whose light wings fluttered by the Spring's sweet streams,
'Twixt earth and heaven, have ye not heavenward grown,
Lifted by faith and prayer into your own
Ethereal likeness, and your wings at length
Grown into angels' pinions by the strength
Of trial, and of daily duty done,
Till now ye fly full-furnished every one,—
Come, dear companions of our vanished year,
And bear us to your own immortal sphere!
The evil days are come, the wintry foe;
Nothing avails us now, but such life-glow
As we have gleaned and gathered through the year.
O cruel Winter, with thy frowning face,
From thee there is no hope, no gift, no grace;
Already saved and sure our home must be,
Or now we perish, outcast, utterly.
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Rises the refuge that our steps should gain?
Where is the guarded flame, the heaped hearthstone,
Which patient toil and thought have made our own,
Beneath the roof where winter winds howl past,
Yet cannot shake its doors and windows fast?
Alas, no work of hands, no warmth of heart
Have fenced for us the harbouring rest apart:
The frozen bed of earth, the snowy pall,
The last, the only birthright left of all.
Yet this world's utter loss is not the end:
Now, open, Heaven, and to our need descend!
O children of the air, fair hopes and dreams,
Whose light wings fluttered by the Spring's sweet streams,
'Twixt earth and heaven, have ye not heavenward grown,
Lifted by faith and prayer into your own
Ethereal likeness, and your wings at length
Grown into angels' pinions by the strength
Of trial, and of daily duty done,
Till now ye fly full-furnished every one,—
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And bear us to your own immortal sphere!
Alas! alas! and is it even ye,
Naked and shivering from the blast that flee
With earthbound limbs, and wings as tender still
As those that opened first at the first thrill
Of the Spring's touch,—our friend who brought us life;—
And now our enemy is here, with death;
We have no weapons, no defence for strife,
And all is over;—this is our last breath:
Hopeless and homeless on the waste world driven,
And fallen back to Earth, tho' born for Heaven.
Naked and shivering from the blast that flee
With earthbound limbs, and wings as tender still
As those that opened first at the first thrill
Of the Spring's touch,—our friend who brought us life;—
And now our enemy is here, with death;
We have no weapons, no defence for strife,
And all is over;—this is our last breath:
Hopeless and homeless on the waste world driven,
And fallen back to Earth, tho' born for Heaven.
| Ballads of the North and Other Poems | |