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111

WINTER FANCIES.

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She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it,-thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear-
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn;
And, in the same moment-hark!
'Tis the early April lark,-
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;

And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;

Through the thought still spread beyond her; And the snake, all winter-thin,

Open wide the mind's cage-door-

She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose!
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming.
Autumn's red-lipped fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting. What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overawed,
Fancy, high-commissioned:-send her!
She has vassals to attend her;
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;-
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth ;—
With a still, mysterious stealth;

Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering
While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose! Every thing is spoilt by use; Where's the cheek that doth not fade, Too much gazed at? Where's the maid Whose lip mature is ever new? Where's the eye, however blue, Doth not weary? Where's the face One would meet in every place? Where's the voice, however soft, One would hear so very oft? At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth Like to bubbles when rain pelteth. Let, then, winged Fancy find Thee a mistress to thy mind: Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter Ere the god of Torment taught her How to frown and how to chide; With a waist and with a side White as Hebe's when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down

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FROST AT MIDNIGHT.

THE frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud-and hark again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village!--sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings on of life
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks its motion in this hush of Nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, everywhere
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of thought.

But O! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft,
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birthplace, and the old church-
tower,

Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things I dreamt
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my

dreams!

And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mocked study on my swimming book

Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance; and still my heart leaped up, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

Dear babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,

Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and

shores

And mountain crags. So shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee: Whether the Summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eve

drops fall,

Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet moon.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

BLOW, BLOW, THOU WINTER WIND.

BLOW, blow, thou winter wind-
Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:

My playmate when we both were clothed Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere

alike!

folly;

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I love to view these things with curious eyes, Thy heart with the terror is gladdened;

And moralise;

And in this wisdom of the holly tree

Can emblems see

Thou forebodest the dread avalanches When whole mountains swoop

valeward.

Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant In the calm thou o'erstretchest the valleys

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