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Man's First Experience of Winter
When man, born 'mid luxuriant Tropic bowers,Beheld, 'neath northern skies, all Nature change;
The falling leaves, the dying grass and flowers,—
How desolate the sight! the scene how strange!
And when the sun declined, and Winter's breath
Had frozen hard the river's rapid tide,
And spread o'er hills and fields the pall of death,—
Feared he not then, that Nature's self had died?
Yet in his heart a faith and trust did spring,
Faith conquering doubt, and trust in Power Divine;
That from this seeming death new life would bring,
And clothe again the tree, the grass, the vine;
And banish from the earth dark Winter's gloom,
And bid her hills and fields with beauty bloom.
Poem No. 791; c. 6 February 1872
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