The Seasons.
The Seasons are my friends, companions dear !1
Hale Winter will I tend with constant feet,2
When over wold and desert, lake and mere,3
He sails triumphant in a rack of sleet,4
With his rude joy the russet earth to greet,5
Pinching the tiny brook and infant ferry ;6
And I will hear him on his mountain seat7
Shouting his boisterous carol free and merry,8
Crown’d with a Christmas wreath of crimson holly-berry9
Young Spring will I encounter, coy and arch,10
When in her humid scarf she leaves the hills,11
Her dewy cheek dried by the winds of March,12
To set the pebbly music of the rills,13
As yet scarce freed from stubborn icicles ;14
And Summer shall entice me once again,15
Ere yet the light her golden dew distils16
To intercept the morning on the plain,17
And see Dan Phœbus slowly tend his drowsy wain.18
But, pensive Autumn, most with thee I love,19
When the wrung peasant’s anxious toil is done,20
Among thy bound and golden sheaves to rove,21
And glean the harvest of a setting sun,22
From the pure mellowing fields of ether won ;23
And in some sloping meadow, musing sit,24
Till vesper rising slowly, widow’d nun,25
Reads whisperingly, her radiant lamp new-let,26
The gospel of the stars, great Nature’s holy writ !27
[These verses are extracted from a poem containing passages of
considerable beauty, entitled ‘The Solitary,’ by Charles Whitehead,
which was published some months since.]
considerable beauty, entitled ‘The Solitary,’ by Charles Whitehead,
which was published some months since.]