Mothers meek! home troubles leaving,
Join your husbands' joy, and come;
Honour, love, respect receiving
From the honest-hearted; come!
Nought unmeet for woman's bearing,
Nought unmeet for woman's hearing,
Blots our merry Harvest-home.
Maidens modest! fear no roughness-
Fathers, brothers are we; come!
Kind and true, despite our bluffness ;
Maidens modest! come then, come!
Far away be thoughts of lightness,
With your own unsullied brightness,
Maidens bless our Harvest-home!
Aged folks! our hamlet's glory,
Dames and grandsires, all must come!
Come and tell again the story
Of the days long bygone; come!
Ye who with life's ills have striven,
And to whom now rest is given,
Welcome to our Harvest-home!
Laughing children! lend your rattle
To our merry-making; come!
Good to hear is childhood's prattle;
Children, merry children, come!
Ye have work'd as hard as others,
Gleaning proud beside your mothers,
Ye must share our Harvest-home.
High and low! with one another,
Young and old! come, join us, come!
Each to each, in God, a brother;
To our village High-day come!
Well it is that harvest labours,
Richly crown'd, should bind all neighbours
In a thankful Harvest-home!
THOUGH now no more the musing ear
Delights to listen to the breeze,
That lingers o'er the greenwood shade,
I love thee, Winter! well.
Sweet are the harmonies of Spring,
Sweet is the Summer's evening gale,
And sweet the autumnal winds that shake
The many-colour'd grove.
And pleasant to the sober'd soul
The silence of the wintry scene,
When Nature shrouds herself, entranced
In deep tranquillity.
Not undelightful now to roam
The wild heath sparkling on the sight;
Not undelightful now to pace
The forest's ample rounds,
And see the spangled branches shine,
And mark the moss of many a hue
That varies the old tree's brown bark,
Or o'er the gray stone spreads.
And mark the cluster'd berries bright
Amid the holly's gay green leaves;
The ivy round the leafless oak
That clasps its foliage close.
Nor void of beauties now the stream,
Whose waters, hid from Summer's sun,
Have soothed the thirsty pilgrim's ear
With more than melody.
The green moss shines with icy glare;
The long grass bends its spear-like form;
And lovely is the silvery scene
When faint the sunbeams smile. Reflection too may love the hour When Nature, hid in Winter's grave, No more expands the bursting bud, Or bids the flowret bloom;
For Nature soon in Spring's best charms
Shall rise revived from Winter's grave,
Expand the bursting bud again,
And bid the flower rebloom.
A CALM WINTER NIGHT.
How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh,
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear,
Were discord to the speaking quietude
That wraps this moveless scene.
Studded with stars unutterably bright,
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,
Seems like a canopy which love had spread
To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills,
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow-
Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend,
So stainless that their white and glittering spires
Tinge not the moon's pure beam-yon castled steep,
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower
So idly, that wrapt Fancy deemeth it
A metaphor of peace;-all form a scene
Where musing solitude might love to lift
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness;
Where silence undisturbed might watch alone,
So cold, so bright, so still.
WOODS IN WINTER.
WHEN winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.
O'er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.
Where, twisted round the barren oak,
The summer vine in beauty clung,
And summer winds the stillness broke,
The crystal icicle is hung.
Where, from their frozen urns, mute spring
Pour out the river's gradual tide,
Shrilly the skater's iron rings,
And voices fill the woodland side.
Alas! how changed from the fair scene,
When birds sang out their mellow lay,
And winds were soft, and woods were green,
And the song ceased not with the day.
But still wild music is abroad,
Pale, desert woods! within your crowd;
And gathering winds, in hoarse accord,
Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,—
I listen, and it cheers me long.
A WINTER EVENING IN THE LIBRARY.
'Tis Winter, cold and rude,
Heap, heap the warming wood!
The wild wind hums his sullen song to-night,
Oh, hear that pattering shower!
Haste, boy!-this gloomy hour
Demands relief; the cheerful tapers light.
Though now my home around
Still roars the wintry sound,
Methinks 'tis Summer by this festive blaze!
My books, companions dear,
In seemly ranks appear,
And glisten to my fire's far-flashing rays.
A WINTER'S FIRESIDE.
WINTER, thou daughter of the storm!
I love thee when the day is o'er,
Spite of the tempest's outward roar;
Queen of the tranquil joys that weave
The charm around the sudden eve!
The thick'ning footsteps through the gloom,
Telling of those we love come home;
The candles lit, the cheerful board,
The dear domestic group restor'd;
The fire that shows the looks of glee,
The infant standing at our knee;
The busy news, the sportive tongue,
The laugh that makes us still feel young;
The health to those we love, that now
Are far as ocean winds can blow;
The health to those who with us grew,
And still stay with us tried and true.
Then music comes till-round us creep
The infant list'ners half asleep;
And busy tongues are loud no more,
And, Winter, thy sweet eve is o'er!
OLD WINTER is the man for me,-
Stout-hearted, sound, and steady;
Steel nerves and bones of brass hath he;
Come snow, come blow, he's ready.
If ever man was well, 'tis he;
He keeps no fire in his chamber,
And yet from cold and cough is free
In bitterest December.
In summer, when the woodland rings,
He asks, "What mean these noises ?" Warm sounds he hates, and all warm things Most heartily despises.
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