• No!

            NO sun—no moon!
            No morn—no noon—
    No dawn—no dust—no proper time of day—
            No sky—no earthly view—
            No distance looking blue—
    No road—no street—no “t’ other side the way”—
            No end to any Row—
            No indications where the Crescents go—
            No top to any steeple—
    No recognitions of...

  • When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder ’s in the shock,
    And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
    And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
    And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
    O it ’s then ’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
    With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night...

  • The Warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
    The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
                And the year
    On the earth her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
                Is lying.
      Come, months, come away,
      From November to May,
      In your saddest array;
      Follow the bier
      Of the dead cold...

  • Out of the bosom of the Air,
      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
    Over the woodlands brown and bare,
      Over the harvest fields forsaken,
        Silent and soft and slow
        Descends the snow.

    Even as our cloudy fancies take
      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
    Even as the troubled heart doth make
      In the...

  • Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
    Arrives the snow; and, driving o’er the fields,
    Seems nowhere to alight; the whited air
    Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
    And veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end.
    The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
    Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
    Around the...

  • The Great soft downy snow-storm like a cloak
    Descends to wrap the lean world head to feet;
    It gives the dead another winding-sheet,
    It buries all the roofs until the smoke
    Seems like a soul that from its clay has broke.
    It broods moon-like upon the Autumn wheat,
    And visits all the trees in their retreat
    To hood and mantle that poor...

  • Stand here by my side and turn, I pray,
      On the lake below thy gentle eyes;
    The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,
      And dark and silent the water lies;
    And out of that frozen mist the snow
    In wavering flakes begins to flow;
                    Flake after flake
    They sink in the dark and silent lake.

    See how in a living swarm...

  • The Day had been a calm and sunny day,
      And tinged with amber was the sky at even;
    The fleecy clouds at length had rolled away,
      And lay in furrows on the eastern heaven;—
    The moon arose and shed a glimmering ray,
    And round her orb a misty circle lay.

    The hoar-frost glittered on the naked heath,
      The roar of distant winds was loud...

  • Jingle, jingle, clear the way,
    ’T is the merry, merry sleigh!
    As it swiftly scuds along.
    Hear the burst of happy song;
    See the gleam of glances bright,
    Flashing o’er the pathway white!
    Jingle, jingle, past it flies,
    Sending shafts from hooded eyes,—
    Roguish archers, I ’ll be bound,
    Little heeding whom they wound;
    ...

  • Sing a song of Spring-time!
        Catkins by the brook,
    Adders-tongues uncounted,
        Ferns in every nook;
    The cataract on the hillside
        Leaping like a fawn;
    Sing a song of Spring-time,—
        Ah, but Spring-time ’s gone!

    Sing a song of Summer!
        Flowers among the grass,
    Clouds like fairy frigates,
        ...